Africa Wild

Manzimahle is a medium-sized dam visible in parts about 20km from Skukuza. One has a turnoff to the S36 Orpen road from here, with a lookout from the northern side.


A couple of years ago (March 2017) the H1-2 totally washed away just below this dam, during a freak storm. It was thought that the dam had broken but it just overflowed dramatically over the dam wall and spillway, which shows one what happens these days with the weather!

One can see the break at bottom right:




It took a LONG time to fix, quite some drama!











Finally fixed April 2018!







Discussions here: viewtopic.php?f=79&t=8220&start=10

Anyway, the dam is almost never dry, and smack in the middle of big-5 country. The parking lot changes a bit as people drive all over the place!


There is a functioning water trough there too for in case.

HISTORY

Found out:

The tar road was built mostly from scratch during 1970/71, as part of the main arterial to the north. One fascinating fact is that construction measurements changed from the Imperial to the Metric system in 1970, so there is a 'stripe" in the road a way south of Tshokwane where one could see the change in dimensions, henceforth used in all subsequent roads!

The road is strictly a communications route, although they manged to follow the Sand River as far as possible.

The old Skukuza/Tshokwane dirt road can still be seen faintly going off to the east from the access road to Leeupan.

Manzimahle

The dam was built in 1969 as a water source for the road construction effort, and has a very small catchment (30 sq km).

Leeupan


The pan is natural, but as one can see in the satellite pic there is indeed an earthern embankment to the northeast. This was added by ranger Jones in the very old days to help with water retention as long as possible for tourism purposes. Remember, this was the local only waterhole for viewing back then.

Silolweni (Shiloweni) Dam

It was built the year after the road was finished. Unfortunately a worker was caught by a lion at midday, highly unusual! There is a grave indicator within sight of the access road. But the dam was breached many years ago due to algal poisoning, and access remains closed.

Very interesting indeed

I think there was never seen an animal at this dam

Agreed, Klippies! Aminals are difficult to see due to distance and vegetation. But they are there!

More Leeupan pics:

This is an area where you see a typical southern Kruger tree, the Delagoa Acacia, Acacia welwitschii, in the transition zone between granite and basalt.