Chrissiesmeer is a small town situated in a wetland area of Mpumalanga

Mpumalanga

Mpumalanga , is a province of South Africa. The name means east or literally "the place where the sun rises" in Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, north of KwaZulu-Natal and bordering Swaziland and Mozambique. It constitutes 6.5% of South Africa's land area...

 province in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, on the northern banks of the eponymous Lake Chrissie

Lake Chrissie

Lake Chrissie is a lake in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. It is a shallow and large lake, with a maximum depth of about 6 m, 9 km long, 3 km wide. The lake is named after Christiana Pretorius, daughter of Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, first president of the boer Transvaal Republic...

. The San

Bushmen

The indigenous people of Southern Africa, whose territory spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola, are variously referred to as Bushmen, San, Sho, Barwa, Kung, or Khwe...

 inhabited this area along with the Tlou-tle people who lived on rafts in the larger lakes. The Voortrekkers

Voortrekkers

The Voortrekkers were emigrants during the 1830s and 1840s who left the Cape Colony moving into the interior of what is now South Africa...

 established a town here in the 1860s and named it after Marthinus Wessel Pretorius

Marthinus Wessel Pretorius

The son of the famous Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius, Marthinus Wessel Pretorius was the first president of the South African Republic, and also compiled the constitution of the Republic....

's daughter Christina. In the 1880s the town became an important stopover for wagons travelling to the gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

 mining town of Barberton

Barberton, Mpumalanga

Barberton is a town in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa, which has its origin in the 1880s gold rush in the region. It is situated in the De Kaap Valley and is fringed by the Mkhonjwa Mountains...

. In total there are more than 270 lakes in the immediate area (located not far from Carolina). Every year nearly 20.000 flamingo come into the area to breed.