By Frank Chemaly 
Jun 23, 2021
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The old picture this week celebrates the halfway point of the traditional Comrades Marathon route, as the greatest race is run virtually on Sunday in its centenary year.
For many a runner, Drummond is the heartbreaking place where Comrades dreams fall at the first hurdle, while others have limped through in the nick of time and gone on to finish the famed ultramarathon.
The old picture takes in the Traffic Hotel, today the site of the 1000 Hills Hotel. It marks off 26 miles to Pietermaritzburg and 28 miles to Durban. The Traffic Hotel was established by British army officer Percy Kingston and his German wife Elise in the early 1900s, before the famed race from Pietermaritzburg to Durban was envisioned.
They also set up a trading store on the site and built a reservoir to pipe water to the hotel. In 2011 they sold the hotel to concentrate on farming, soon setting up a thriving butchery and sawmill in the small town.
Our photographer Shelley Kjonstad checked the distance on the old postcard leaving from Durban this week. “I took off from the City Hall and zeroed my odometer reading. I drove the Comrades route, until I reached 45.6km which is 28 miles. Since the route has changed over the years, it took me just past the 1000 Hills Hotel,” she says.
The Independent on Saturday