About 65 million years ago a large meteorite slammed into the earth in an area we have come to know as the Yucatán peninsula. The resulting ash cloud that was flung into the atmosphere and encircled the earth blocked out the sun and eventually led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Almost 2000 million years earlier an even bigger meteorite slammed into the earth in present day South Africa near the town of Vredefort. The meteorite was an estimated to be between 20-25 kilometers in diameter and created a crater up to 300 kms wide. The rebounding of the earth after impact caused and uplift of material now known as the Vredefort Dome, a series of circular hill formations northwest of Johannesburg. Archeological evidence suggests that the only living organisms around at this time were simple protozoas which would have been destroyed in the cataclysm. Who knows what they would have evolved to had this not happened.

Central to this area is a town called Parys. It is to here we journeyed for a bit of shopping therapy and some light refreshments. Parys is a town much like Chemainus but it has become somewhat busy with traffic with lots of commercial trucking using the Main Street. You have to on high alert when crossing the street as traffic flows on the left hand side of the road.
Later we returned to our cars and drove for about 30 minutes to a beautiful venue located beside the Vaal River. This river flows through north central SA and is about 1450 kms long. We spent the afternoon on the banks of the river just upstream from the “barrage”, a weir/dam the forms the Barrage lake. The river is lined with massive estates and monstrous homes. This venue is an open air party place. We were served a traditional lunch of oxtail stew and homemade breads with local wine and beers. A formal welcome from the District 9400 Friendship Exchange Committee chairperson was warmly received by our team. I was asked during an earlier conversation what my first impressions of South Africa were. In response I said two things. Number one was how much we appreciated our warm welcome and secondly how evident it was that South Africans are very proud of their country.
We capped the afternoon off with a nice cruise up the river and back and then a short drive home and early to bed for another busy day.