Putsonderwater, formerly known as Putzonderwater, is a remote and now abandoned “ghost town” in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, situated along the R383 Regional Route between Kenhardt and Marydale.
Translated from Afrikaans, the name means “well without water”.
In Afrikaans, the term Putsonderwater is used to indicate a far-off place, in the middle of nowhere.
Putsonderwater falls within !Kheis Local Municipality and the ZF Mgcawu District Municipality.
The town of Putsonderwater is also a remote railway station, straddling the railway line between De Aar and Upington.
The R383 road to Putsonderwater is lined by the ‘lollipop’ nests of thousands of social weaver birds.
The Putsonderwater railway siding once won certificates for being the neatest railway station in South Africa. Now, there are only four families left.
Name origins
The town was allegedly first called Krombegin (Skewed Beginning).
One story told regarding the town’s name goes as follows: Voortrekkers who left the Cape Colony in 1838, had arrived in the Northern Cape at the place known today as “Putsonderwater”. As they stayed over there, it started to rain heavily. The water rose to the point that it covered the buckets of tar (called teerputs in Afrikaans) that were hung under the wagons, so the farmers called the place “Puts Onder Water” (“tar bucket under water”). This however, does not explain the Dutch spelling of “Putzonderwater”, and is considered a flight of fancy by André Brink.
Another version claims that a local called David Ockhuis dug a well in the 1880s but was loath to share the water with passers-by, and would claim that his well had no water. When the land was later divided, the one farm was called Putzonderwater and the other called Middelka.