Tswaing is one of the world's best preserved meteorite impact craters. It was formed around 220 000 years ago by the impact of a 50m meteorite. For many years there was speculation about whether the crater was formed by a volcanic process or as the result of an impact event.
Tswaing means Place of Salt in Tswana. People have been coming here since the middle stone age to hunt and collect salt from the crater lake. For a brief period at the beginning of the 20th century commercial extraction of salt and soda took place. The ruins of the processing plant and warming ponds can still be seen.
The Wherigo cartridge will guide you along the popular route around the crater, with additional information about each point of interest. This is a bilingual tour, with descriptions in English and Afrikaans.
The 7.2km walk will take 3-4 hours. The crater bowl can be very hot, especially in summer. It is essential to carry enough drinking water. Don’t forget your hat and sunscreen too.
The walking tour starts from the picnic site. Follow the dirt road from the entrance gate and park in the fenced-off area.
The cache is not hidden at the coordinates provided. You will need to download the Wherigo Tswaing Meteorite Crater and load it onto a compatible device which will guide you along the route. If you haven't done this before a good source of info is What is Wherigo? on the Groundspeak forum. Make sure you have downloaded the latest version of the cartridge: Currently ver 1.3 loaded on 24/7/2016.
This is a long Wherigo, so make sure your batteries are fully charged. Taking a power bank is almost essential. If you are looking for other caches along the way a second device will make it a lot easier.
