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Thursday
25th January
Our flight,
with British Airways, left Johanneburg International at 7.30am,
45 minutes later than scheduled, and landed at Port Elizabeth, 800
miles away at 8.45am.
We then got
a taxi, with a chap called Adrian who turned out to be 5th generation
from the original settlers that settled Port Elizabeth. He offered
to take us on a guided tour, which we decided to take at 1pm that
afternoon.
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Adrian, showing
us the house of his descendents
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The Horse Memorial
The grave of
James Langley Dalton
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We had some
breakfast, wandered around a while and then met with Adrian, who
took us all around the city, all the while explaining the different
parts of the town.
It is a remarkably
European city, with very clean streets and the sea lapping at a
pristine beach. We visited the only memorial in the world for Horses,
which is from the Boer War and then went to the Russell Road Cemetery,
where we finally visited James Langley
Dalton's final resting place.
As the main
force behind the plan to defend Rorke's
Drift, this was a special moment for my Dad who has spent quite
some time visiting the memorials of all those VC winners from Rorke's
Drift buried in the UK. I found this quite a moving experience,
and was pleased to have suffered the flight to come here.
The grave was
well tended and had recently been painted, so it was in very good
order. We then left and spent the evening in the Hotel, thinking
of the days events.
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