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Zaandtrekocht
The Great Zaandtrekocht

[ Dutch: Zaandtrekocht | Afrikaans: Zeintrekkt | English: The Sand Trek.]

The Zaandtrekocht was a large emigration by Boers in Australia which occurred between the years 1813-1826 after lower-class Boers living on the coast had gone in search for fertile farmlands and un-governed lands. Most travelled by Coast and or even ships later on into the Zaantrekk, which was eventually given support and some-what sparse funding by the Prinsenland Crown. Some 23.000 - 29.000 Boers, Germans and Friesians, who had by the time of the trek begin calling themselves the Zaantrekkers went on this perilous and daunting journey of the upwards of 29.000 who left to embark on the trek and left the Saarel Province it is speculated only between 13.000 - 16.000 had actually survived the emigration.

"Der Blasende Roete" (English: The Blistering Trail.) Der Blasende Roete refers to the Boers in Australia who departed from western provinces, around the Southern Saarel Province which was held by the Prinsenland East Asian Oriental Company (Dutch: Prinsenlaande Oost-Aziatische Oriëntaalse Compagnie.) into the Australian interior, Specifically the ones who took the more direct but vastly more un-forgiving route, eventually trekking deep into the Great Australian Outback, also referred as the "Der Blasende Roete" (English: The Blistering Trail.) There was two notable wagon trains of Der Blasende Roete the Waugne-Preisse Wagon Train, Founded by Peiter vaan Waugne and Enric vaan Preisse,

On the Right: Peiter vaan Waugne photographed around August 1841, nearly 9 years after his wagon band had completed the trek.

Which had humble beginnings, Two neighboring farmers and homesteads which had suffered three or more severely deficient planting seasons packed up together and went West taking with them but their clothes and very little of their personal items, wanting to take a quicker route to beat other families, Many in the surrounding area were doing the same and as fate has it they eventually joined up together for better strength in numbers, accumulating some 130 - 140 families and nearly between 65 - 84 wagons (sources vary) and additionally around 200 pack animals. During the trek the Zaantrekkers, especially following the ones on the Blistering Trail had suffered severe attrocities, Many frequently dying.

In Peiters own memoir he writes about the attrocities the Zaantrekkers had faced on a daily basis "It's the Ninth Monday into the journey and its not unreasonable to awake to fighting within the wagon-band between our own people, squabbling amongst ourselves over water or food or other necessities, But the worse of it is the aboriginals of the area they're vicious and barbaric, They often came in small packs but truly made devastating attacks and raids on our wagon train, The same ones who not only two weeks ago had launched an ambush on a portion of our wagon band which had been slowly drifting further back in the line, 2 families were killed in what had occurred that night but the aboriginals paid severely, as I recall a boy of one of the families slain grabbing his father rifle, which had laid in his kins motionless hand, started firing and killing three of those barbaric peoples, The expression on that boys face was blank and fearful, I had taken him in soon after, feeling deeply for the boy, as his family was massacred and that had truly broken that young man, But the boy refused to eat and barely slept, I woke several nights ago to a shot, He was just a boy but the sights and loss of his family on this trek, he just couldn't bear any longer, we buried him in the loose arid sand later that morning, I had placed his father's rifle with him, He had clung to that thing after the night that happened, And in that moment I had regretted going on this blistering trek." Peiter had kept writing and his memoirs, making sure to write about certain days along the trek but not all is known, He was busy leading the wagon band on and off, trading with Preisse's family every other day.

It is speculated out of the roughly 70 families which had took part that only 38 families had survived, we now know this because the day Peiter had arrived to what is now New Freisland, he wrote "We've arrived in fertile lands, water is abundant and great seas lay across the horizon, we stopped for the past two nights to rest and replenish, drawing water from nearby freshwater but we're to continue more towards the south to the coast in the Morning, God is Good and has blessed us with these fertile-plateaus and rich and sprawling coastlines but we won't forget of the several families lost to the trail and wagons we had to abandon to make time, and of those Aboriginals, we had bared and paid the price of this journey and now we are rewarded, With us today are some 32 families, many broken beyond repair, some fatherless, some motherless, sisterless and brotherless, rest their souls, but our belief remains firm in God and of the land." their wagon band, which had consisted of the roughly 70 families numbered in around 350 people who had started with the wagon band had by this time depleted by more then over half, Leaving roughly 160 Zaantrekkers who remained.

The Waugne-Preisse wagon-band setup in now what is Waugnestad-und-Preissenhaal, New Freisland, Weustrie. A Monument was constructed in the town square, of a wagon and the boy with his father's rifle, in memorial to those who had suffered the atrocities and died along the trek, with it an excerpt of Peiter vaan Waugne's memoir that reads :

' Blitsig, gekneus, dors, maar bevestig in geloof.'

[English: Blistered, Bruised, Thirsty but Affirm in Belief.]

their story is like many who had undertook the journey and route of what Der Blasende Roete really was, and its show the stark Boeric determination within their culture to not give-up even in the direst measures.