Can you guess where this beach is?
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Technically it’s not a beach. Not a coastal one anyway. It is the sandveld on the banks of the Bloemhof Dam on the border between the North West Province and the Free State.
Bloemhof Dam was built in the late 1960’s and is located at the confluence of the Vaal River and the Vet River. At 25 000 hectares the dam with it’s 4 270 m long dam wall is one of the largest in South Africa. The dam itself is very shallow as it isn’t located in a gorge and stretches up to a 100 km upstream from the wall.
The area around the dam has been declared a protected area with the Bloemhof Dam Nature Reserve on the North West side is the more prominent Sandveld Nature Reserve in the Free State. The Sandveld Nature Reserve is one of South Africa’s top birding spots with 295 bird species recorded here as well as game like giraffe, buffalo, eland, gemsbok, and rare sable and roan antelope.