Chrissiesmeer Dam

Country's Premier Lake District

©Jacques Marais

Chrissiesmeer Dam (named after the daughter of Boer president Pretorius, Christina) is the largest of the many wetlands that occur around the eponymous town of Chrissiesmeer. The town was once an important staging post on the wagon route to Delagoa Bay (Maputo) but, with the advent of the railway line from Pretoria, the area reverted to a reposeful farming distinct.
With more than 250 lakes within a 20 km radius of the town, the people of Mpumalanga have some justification for calling this the country's premier lake district. The wetlands are important for water birds in the area, but they are now under threat: coal has been discovered in quantity, and it will be a tough battle to stop the industrial behemoth from ripping up the ground and destroying them. A much lesser-known aspect of the area's history is that some of the San who escaped persecution at the hands of early colonists in the KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg found refuge in the Chrissiesmeer area. Up until today their descendants live there as farm labourers.

Around Chrissiesmeer

This is a little known corner of the country, particularly around Chrissiesmeer, which has the country's only natural inland lakes – around 230 of them in all. The biggest was named after ZAR President Pretorius’s daughter Christina, by the original Scottish settler who took a fancy to her.
Before the time of Voortrekkers, the area was thought to have been the range of the largest San group ever to have inhabited South Africa. But their cattle stealing sort of needled the Swazis who attacked and enslaved most of them in the early 1800s. Lots of San rock art is to be found in the area, but alas for us long-haul riders there will be little time for sightseeing.

By David Bristow