The Parys Newsletter, October 2016
“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.” – Hermann Hesse
And this is why you need to make some time to come and sit by the river in Parys!
Summer is here in all its glory and the streets of Parys are overflowing with visitors and tourists. We’ve had a bit of rain that washed away the dust, but the drought as everywhere else in South Africa is still disconcerting. The Vaal Dam is running on empty and they’re releasing very little water downstream. Normally at this time of the year, the Vaal River at Parys has an average water flow of 18 cubic meters per second, it is currently flowing at 10m3/s.
Parys was proud to host the South African World Tourism Day Festivities, which was held at Vaal de Grace Golf Estate on the 27th September. The day was hosted by the Minister of Tourism Derek Hanekom and Sam Mashinini the Free State MEC for Economic, Small Business Development, Tourism, and Environmental Affairs. The theme was accessibility, for the disabled to tourism venues in the South Africa. The Dept. of Tourism bussed in disabled children from the Free State as well as local Epilepsy S.A. kids and they were all treated to a fun day out. Good news for the Vredefort Dome Heritage area is that Minister Hanekom promised to personally return in November for a meeting with stakeholders of the area to discuss future tourism possibilities for the area.
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