The Baakens River, also known as Gqeberha River (), is a river that empties at

Port Elizabeth Gqeberha ( , ), formerly named Port Elizabeth, and colloquially referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipal ...

's city centre and harbour in

Algoa Bay Algoa Bay is a maritime bay in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It is located on the east coast, east of the Cape of Good Hope. Algoa Bay is bounded in the west by Cape Recife and in the east by Cape Padrone. The bay is up to deep. The harbour ...

. Bakensriviersa Geonames.org (cc-by) post updated 18 January 2012; database download sa 28 February 2017 The river flows for about from its catchment area at Sherwood, Hunter's Retreat, and Rowallan Park through mainly urban area to its mouth. Mostly, it is a small quiet stream. Near its mouth, it runs into a gorge on the south side of the hill on which Fort Frederick lies. Until the first

VOC VOC, VoC or voc may refer to: Science and technology * Open-circuit voltage (VOC), the voltage between two terminals when there is no external load connected * Variant of concern, a category used during the assessment of a new variant of a virus * ...

ships docked here in 1690, the creek was known by the

Khoekhoe Khoikhoi ( /ˈkɔɪkɔɪ/ ''KOY-koy'') (or Khoekhoe in Namibian orthography) are the traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of South Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San (literally "foragers") peop ...

name from the Gonoqua tribe, . In time, the last of the stream was

canalised River engineering is a discipline of civil engineering which studies human intervention in the course, characteristics, or flow of a river with the intention of producing some defined benefit. People have intervened in the natural course and b ...

and the small lagoon filled up. Parks, sports grounds and hiking trails have been laid out in parts of the Baakens Valley.

History

In 1752, ensign August Frederik Beutler passed by and erected a

beacon A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location. A common example is the lighthouse, which draws attention to a fixed point that can be used to navigate around obstacles or into port. More mode ...

(baken in contemporary Dutch) on behalf of the VOC at the estuary. The 54 ha Settler Park has existed since 1938. The valley was in the years 1867, 1897, 1908 ( 1908 Port Elizabeth flood), 1968, 1981 and 2006 the scene of severe

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

s, floods and great damage. On 5 May 1897, the cause was a cloudburst at Hunter's Retreat. On Sunday 1 September 1968, it started to rain just after 8am and within a short time more than 56 cm fell. In the most devastating flood that South Africa had experienced until then, 8 people lost their lives. is the name for this river in

Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...

. The neighbourhood Kabega Park may have been named after this river.

References

{{reflist Rivers of the Eastern Cape

History

See also

References