Spectacular Sluices Traditional Geocache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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The Vaal Dam lies on the Vaal River, which is one of South Africa's strongest-flowing rivers. It has over 800 kilometres of shoreline and is South Africa's second biggest dam by area and the third largest by volume. The lake behind the dam wall has a surface area of about 320 square kilometres.
The construction of Vaal Dam started during the depression of the early thirties and the dam was completed in 1938 with a wall height of 54.2 metres above lowest foundation and a full supply capacity of 994,000,000 cubic metres. The dam is a concrete gravity structure with an earthfill section on the right flank. It was built as a joint venture by Rand Water and the Department of Irrigation (now known as the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry).
The dam was subsequently raised in the early fifties to a height of 60.3 metres which increased the capacity to 2,188,000,000 cubic metres. A second raising took place in 1985 when the wall was raised by a further 3.05 metres to 63.4 metres above lowest foundation. The capacity of the dam is currently 2,536,000,000 cubic metres and a further 663,000,000 cubic metres or 26% can be stored temporarily for flood attenuation.
Three provinces make up the Dam's shoreline - the Free State is the largest by area, Mpumalanga has a beautiful and relatively unspoilt shoreline, and Gauteng.
Many world class watersport events are held here including the annual "Round The Island" yacht race organized by Lake Deneys Yacht Club, a race that has been in the Guinness Book of Records for being the "inland yacht race with the most yachts in the World", and Keelboat Week, hosted by Deneysville Aquatic Club.
Whenever the real summer rains arrive, the view here is even more spectacular when the sluice gates get opened and the water is allowed out of the dam.
We initially wanted to hide a small or regular size cache somewhere with a nice view of the dam wall, but whilst doing the research for this cache found a now archived regular sized cache, Bridge Walker Vaalriver, which was repeatedly muggled along here.
We have therefore resorted to a micro container, which will hopefully stay safe, but still show you the spectacular view of the dam wall. If you do go looking for it when the sluices are all open, you can expect to get stuck in crowds of people and traffic jams. There is a small parking area on the east side of the bridge from which you can access the cache and walk onto the bridge.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Zntargvp