A recent Australian group touring the Bushveldt Carbineer (BVC) skirmishes terrain in the Soutpansberg was the first group of Aussies since the launch of Charles Leach’s book on the legend of Breaker Morant.

The group told Leach, a well-known local historian and tour guide, that they expected to be rapped over the knuckles when they came here, but fortunately they experienced the tour and its presentation as “very balanced”.

“The tour took place on 16 October and we welcomed them with a sign that said we could talk about the BVC but not about rugby and cricket,” Inga Gilfillan, proprietor of the Zoutpansberg Skirmishes Museum at the Lalapanzi Hotel, said. Gilfillan said that the group laughed and started to relax.

“Later, they were awed by the fact that they were standing on the actual terrain that they had read and heard so much about. They visited Vliegenpan, Sweetwaters and Fort Edward," Gilfillan said.

The group said that although it was only their sixth day of touring battlefields of the world, they had experienced the Zoutpansberg Skirmishes Tour as a definite highlight.

“We are grateful that our battlefield in the Soutpansberg is now so famous that it is reckoned among the battlefields of the world,” Gilfillan said. 

Leach was heartened by the fact that two members of the tour group, comprising mostly ex-military men and war veterans, had already read his book on the controversial issue of Breaker Morant, who is a national hero in Australia but is exposed as a thug and murderer in the book. Since Morant was the commanding officer, he was responsible for all of the murders that his men committed. The book is titled The Legend of Breaker Morant is dead and buried – a South African version of the Bushveldt Carbineers in the Zoutpansberg, May 1901 – April 1902.

The first few hours of the tour the group was rather quiet, which Leach interpreted as their dealing with the dilemma of being faced with the necessity to change a perspective that had been part of Australian history for 100 years. “Then they got noisy and asked questions, all very positive ones. Three or four members of the group were more historically and less politically inclined and said that what they saw was confirming what they had realised was the truth all along,” Leach said.

The Australian tour guide, Dennis Weatherall, was impressed with the information monuments and the way the Zoutpansberg Skirmishes Tour is presented. “Weatherall said that we have an extremely valuable piece of history here. Coming from someone who is member of the Battlefields of the World Tour Guides makes it all the more gratifying,” Leach said.

No tour guide can apply to become a member of the exclusive club of Battlefields of the World Tour Guides, but has to be nominated. Weatherall asked Leach whether he could nominate him to become member of the club, a suggestion which Leach said was most humbling.