EYABANTWANA HERITAGE RIDE 2021 #3 - THE VREDEFORT IMPACT CRATER

The cyclists and their support team will pass a number of World Heritage sites on their way to the start of the ride as well as on the ride itself.  The first of these will be the VREDEFORT IMPACT CRATER on the provincial border between the Free State and Gauteng.

There are approximately 190 major meteor craters on Earth and the Vredefort Crater has the distinction of being the largest!  Scientists have determined that an asteroid (as big as Table Mountain) crashed into the Earth at a speed of 36 000 km/h (20 km per second!) and formed a crater 17 km deep and 300 km in diameter.  This is believed to have been the biggest energy-release event (explosion) in the history of the Earth.  This event occurred 2 billion years ago - before life as we know it existed on Earth.

A similar impact event off the Mexican coast at Yucatan 66 million years ago is the probable cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The Vredefort crater is best seen from Space - a NASA photo appears below

EYABANTWANA HERITAGE RIDE 2021 #2

                   
Maya Angelou (American poet and civil rights activist) once said:

“I have great respect for the past.

 If you don’t know where you’ve come from,

 you won’t know where you are going.”

The EYABANTWANA HERITAGE RIDE is a journey into the past reconnecting

us with our past from the earliest beginning of our planet, the origin of humankind, 

the people that have occupied Southern Africa and their interactions over time with

each other and the environment.  

The ride will start on 25 October 2021 from Mapungubwe a UNESCO World Heritage Site - the "capital" of an ancient kingdom that lived and traded from the 10th to 15th centuries at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe Rivers.

EYABANTWANA HERITAGE RIDE 2021 #1

FOR THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS AUTRESDIRECTIONS WILL BE "ON SAFARI" WITH GRANDADS' ARMY AS THEY CYCLE THE LENGTH OF SOUTH ARFICA FROM MAPUNGUBWE TO THE NAHOON FOOTPRINTS.

THEIR HERITAGE RIDE 2021 IS IN AID OF THE EYABANTWANA (for the children) TRUST

Their HERITAGE RIDE will start at Mapungubwe, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the Limpopo River (the northern border of South Africa) on Monday 25 October and will end at the site of the oldest fossilised human footprints found on Earth at Nahoon Point on the east coast of South Africa.

This epic journey of 1 500 km consists of 14 "stages" of 107 km each.

A LA CARTE ...

So what's on the menu today?  Granny on the cart has all the details!

For a moment in Montoire, I thought this elderly senior citizen was one of those "human statues" one encounters in the streets of Paris ... but she's not from Paris.

She is, however, probably made of plaster of Paris ... LOL!

 

MONTOIRE MARKETDAY

Fresh fruit and vegetables, straight from the farm to the consumer - one of the joys of shopping at village markets in France.  The Montoire town square bustles with merchants and shoppers every Wednesday and Saturday morning as it has for centuries - good traditions are made to last!

OJ - reminiscing ... again

MONOCHROME MONTOIRE

Reflections in a quiet street where history is rarely spoken about ...

Montoire sur le Loir - a small French town in the Loir-et-Cher department famous for being the location of the meeting between Hitler and Marshal Petain in October 1940 where the capitulation of France was discussed.

AFTER THE RAIN

 

After the rain it's time to spread your wings and ... dry before you fly!

A Crowned Hornbill makes the most of the early morning sunshine after two days of being in the rain.

OJ - considering the challenges that face birds in wet weather

Thank you for the photo MJ.