Old Joe Statue

The first decent road through Schoemanskloof was built in the 1920s under the supervision of a Hollander, Joe Barbas whose ‘likeness’, can still be seen on the side of this road. In 1927, the men working for him discovered a rock near Patatasnek that they reckoned looked like him. They hauled it up to the road, painted it white and labelled it ‘Joe’. The real Joe died in 1974. (Feb 2012).
One local artist took charge of Old Joe, namely Wouter de Witt also known as Ghost. He has become a celebrity as locals wait in anticipation to see the next Old Joe character he paints on the same stone. Wouter and TRAC N4 are the guardians of Old Joe. Each new look uses about a litre of paint and takes about 6 hours to complete. He has been anything from a cat to a rugby mascot, but he is and will always be Old Joe.