Groot Marico, Central Region

Lying just off the N4, known as the Platinum Highway, the little town of Groot Marico lies between Zeerust and Rustenburg - a smattering of houses and streets that include the ever-popular names of Church and Voortrekker (almost every little dorp in the country has at least one of these street names).

Groot Marico is small. Blink and you will miss it. But a visit here is almost imperative. There are some enchanting old buildings, including the Information Centre tucked off the main road behind a wall built by Italian prisoners of war during World War II, and a good place to stop to find out local information and a place. The town is lined with huge blue gum trees, whilst outside of town looms the Groot Marico mountain in the distance.

But most people come here to soak up the ambiance of the world of Herman Charles Bosman and to visit the HC Bosman Living Museum - called this because it looks exactly like the local school at which Bosman taught in 1926. The area is not known as 'Bosman Country' for nothing as this is where most of his stories are set. The town remains charming, slow and a perfect place to pass the time with locals.

It has also recently featured predominantly in the press as locals and environmental groups mount a resistance to try and save the area from the threat of an Australian-based prospecting and mining company that intends mining nickel in open cast mines that will have a detrimental effect on the environment and the neighbouring farms. As this blurb was written for SA Venues a petition makes the rounds, and prospecting, including large scale drilling, has already started at the source of the Marico River.