A little bit of sunlight

Except for a moment when the sun came through thick cloud cover, we have had rain for most of last night and today.

The good news is that the Garden Route Dam level has risen substantially, but that the water restrictions have not been lifted.
With many holidaymakers due for their summer holidays at the seaside, I guess it will be wise to keep the restrictions in place.
Although the welcome rain brought much relief from the drought in our area, not far from where we are are towns and communities where the drought is ongoing.

This beautiful dam, the Gamka Dam at Beaufort West, is completely dry at the moment.

From a newspaper report:

The Karoo town of Beaufort West's main reservoir has completely dried up, the municipality said on Wednesday.

Water levels of the Gamka dam reached an all-time low of minus nine percent last week.

The town's residents have now been forced to rely on boreholes for their daily water supply.

The region has been experiencing its worst drought in over 100 years.

Municipality spokesperson Louw Smit said the water crisis was escalating.

"The Gamka dam, the only one we can get water from, is totally empty. We are relying on underground water at this stage. We are only balancing the water usage," he said.

Spokesperson for the Beaufort West Tourism Office, Sascha Klemm, said they were worried about the potential impact of the water crisis on their peak tourism season.

At the moment we haven't seen any decline in tourism, but we are concerned that if we don't have rain before December it might have an impact on tourism, he added.


Scary times.