Katse Dam

These photos were taken on an earlier trip to Lesotho.

I was spending a weekend in Clarens, a beautiful touristic village in Free State South Africa, very close to the border with this small country, so decided to go on a short visit to the “Mountain Kingdom”. I had heard of this huge project of the Katse Dam and was curious to go and take a look at it.

To reach the dam, you have to drive for about one hundred kilometres across the mountains of Lesotho.  

Katse Dam is part of the massive Lesotho Highlands Water Project , which includes 5 dams scheduled to be completed by 2020. The height of the dam wall is 185m. The aim is to provide electricity for Lesotho but also to supplement water to South Africa. This is done by means of a first 45km, 4m diameter long transfer tunnel to Muela, followed by a 37km tunnel that takes the water across the border to a location very close to Clarens. It then flows into the Axle River, a tributary of the Vaal River.

The river valleys in Lesotho are narrow so the lakes are very deep.

The journey to Katse is along an extremely winding road but the scenery is so spectacular and the local people  are very friendly!