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neering projects and infrastructure; the backbone that Potchefstroom and six years in Richards Bay, six years
supports the economy providing the lifelines of water as municipal engineer and like his colleagues, his sto-
and transportation. ries and experiences can fill a couple of volumes. How-
ever, this book cannot be complete without describing a
This story is mainly about civil engineering, but it must few of the tasks he had to deal with:
be acknowledged that the other engineering disciplines
including electrical, mechanical, chemical and others all • Working with historians in restoration projects where
played major roles as well and as such, the broader even the mud for re-plastering the old buildings had
engineering community is to be credited with what to be sourced from the original ant heaps on a farm
modern South Africa offers today in terms of modern near the town.
structures. Mining engineering can also be defined as
vertical civil engineering, and who else is providing the • Designing a cemetery in the dune sands.
pylons and the power stations needed for electricity but
civil engineering. At the massive Sasol synthetic fuel • Overseeing the design of two huge reservoirs and
plant at Secunda the civil engineering professionals are arranging the opening function for guests inside
in the minority and as such the chemical, mechanical the structure, complete with a demonstration of
and industrial engineering professions reign supreme, the sound characteristics and acoustics in a cir-
but once more the civil engineering profession provides cular structure like this and devising a ladder and
the transportation, water and other structural elements walkway to allow guests to crawl through the outlet
and infrastructure for this industry. Civil engineers are valve to attend the occasion.
commonly called Dagha Paddas (mortar frogs). Al-
though these remarks may be in jest and should be • Crawling and stumbling through the coastal thickets
read as such, civil engineering is at the very foundation to establish the design principles of a new suburb,
of all that is called development and civilisation. accompanied by the town planner, just to emerge
covered in pepper ticks that were looking for a
After all, the vocations and professions of the built envi- meal.
ronment including engineering, technology and science
is an integrated set that provides for all the needs and • Being sent on a coastal ecology course at Stellen-
wishes of the third millennial communities. But at the bosch, coming back much enlightened and enthu-
very basis and foundation of all these activities lies the siastic only to be confronting colleagues who were
civil engineering profession – recognised or unrecogn- not impressed by things like timber stairways and
ised. A golf course may be the premises of a landscape roads around trees and dunes rather than bulldoz-
architect, but a civil engineer provides the services and ing through.
forms the shapes. A beautiful landmark building is the
design-child of an architect but civils provide the foun- • Using durable and unmoveable concrete culverts for
dation and the framework that hold it together. A town picnic tables and benches since some of the public
planner ensures that a town is laid out along modern liked to push over or pull out traditional timber with
principles, but civils design, build and maintain all that their Land Rovers for pure enjoyment.
go with it.
For most of our South African civil engineering profes-
Most of the civil engineering professionals travel sionals the term Jack of all trades would be quite accu-
through their professional lives with never a dull mo- rate – however, in contrast to the saying, most of them
ment to complain about. South Africans are known for are masters of quite a lot of things.
pioneering and exposure to a variety of challenges and
varying situations. Civil engineering varies substantially The idea of a book that could facilitate what we would
from province to province owing to topography climate like to categorise as civil engineering tourism was
and many other factors. To illustrate this observation, mooted but at the time the project did not continue
some anecdotes by the author who spent seven years in due to a lack of capacity and funding. At that stage

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