Day 29: Katse Dam

After breakfast we sat on the deck overlooking the dam and did some birding. There are only 151 bird species in the area. We saw some different species including a malachite sunbird. 

From there we took a walk through Katse Village to the Katse Botanical Gardens. Entrance fee was a bank breaking R5 per person. It is 42 acres of alpine flora developed in 1996. The gardens were created as a result of a plant rescue mission to mitigate the impact of the Katse Dam, particularly the Lesotho National Plant, the spiral aloe. We saw magnificent specimens of this plant. 

At an altitude of 2229m, it claims to be the highest botanical garden in the Southern atmosphere. The gardens, like all of Lesotho, must be spectacular in summer.

This afternoon we spent a fascinating 2 hours touring the dam wall, entrance for this amazing tour was R10 per person. 

The Katse Dam was built between 1991 and 1996 as the first of 4 phases of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. The project provides electricity to Lesotho and water to Gauteng and the surrounding provinces.

 This double curvature concrete arch dam is the second largest and highest in Africa. It is 185m high and the crest length is 710m. The concrete arch consists of 46 segments and is 60m thick at the base tapering to 9m at the crest.  2.32 million cubic metres of concrete were produced to build it. This was transported by cement mixers from Ficksburg, over those scary passes we drove yesterday, at 40 minute intervals, day and night, for 5 years. 

The wall has a series of parallel tunnels and galleries that contain precision instruments that monitor the behavior of the dam and also act as drainage channels for water seepage. As part of the tour, we were taken to level 8 of 14 inside the dam wall.

 I found it amusing that we had to wear hard hats, if anything was going to go wrong, like the 30m of concrete holding back trillions of water breaking – hard hats were not going to save us. For security purposes we were not allowed to take photos inside the wall.  We then took a drive over the dam wall. 

View from Dam wall

There is so much more to the project, like underground tunnels, that are gravity powered but I have bored you with enough statistics. The route in was well worth it to tour this engineering feat.  

Another contribution of the project is the establishment of trout farms. The farms export to China and to Woolworths and Pick ‘n Pay in SA. They are absolutely delicious, I had one for dinner.

Trout cages