- Machadodorp
Machadodorp is a small town situated near the edge of the
escarpment in theMpumalanga province,South Africa with theElands River running through the town. There is a naturalradioactive spring here that is reputed to have powerful healing qualities. The town grew around a station originally named Geluk, after the sheep farm it was built on, but in 1894 the name was changed to honour MajorJoachim Machado , anengineer who had surveyed the land for the proposedPretoria -Delagoa Bay railway line. The settlement became a capital for a few months from 5 June 1900, but was only declared a municipal town in 1904. This quirk in history happened during theSecond Boer War when theTransvaal Volksraad made the town their temporary seat, using railway carriages as their offices and munt after they had to evacuatePretoria in the face of a British invasion. The station closed in 2002, but thanks to a quick thinking station master who had decades earlier rescued a consignment of dying trout by dumping the fish in the Elands River, the town continued to play a large part in Mpumlanga's subsequent trout tourism industry. In the 21st century, Machadodorp's residents either work for the industries feeding a chrome smelter, or the logging industries based on the pine plantations surrounding the town.TheKomati Gorge , known for its considerablebiodiversity and bluffhabitat s forms a bacdrop to the town. [ [http://www.luminatechnologies.org/luminawws.html C. Michael Hogan and Amy Gregory, "Ecology of Komati Gorge", Lumina Technolgies, July 22, 2006] ]References
External links
* [http://www.machadodorp.co.za/ Machadodorp Info]
* [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-25.692215,30.037050&spn=0.059279,0.080316&t=k&hl=en Google Map]
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