Machadodorp, also known by its official name eNtokozweni, is a small town situated on the N4 road, near the edge of the

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''escar ...

in the

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is a province of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It ...

province,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. The Elands River runs through the town. There is a natural

radioactive Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is consid ...

spring here that is reputed to have powerful healing qualities.

History

The town grew around a station originally named Geluk, after the sheep farm it was built on, but in 1894 the name was changed to honour the Portuguese Major

Joachim Machado Joachim (; ''Yəhōyāqīm'', "he whom Yahweh has set up"; ; ) was, according to Christian tradition, the husband of Saint Anne and the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The story of Joachim and Anne first appears in the Biblical apocryphal ...

, an

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

who had surveyed the land for the proposed

Nelspruit Mbombela (also known as Nelspruit) is a city in northeastern South Africa. It is the capital of the Mpumalanga province. Located on the Crocodile River (Mpumalanga), Crocodile River, Mbombela lies about by road west of the Mozambique border, ea ...

Delagoa Bay Maputo Bay ( pt, Baía de Maputo), formerly also known as Delagoa Bay from ''Baía da Lagoa'' in Portuguese, is an inlet of the Indian Ocean on the coast of Mozambique, between 25° 40' and 26° 20' S, with a length from north to south of over 90&n ...

railway line through the Crocodile River gorge. The settlement became a capital for a few months from 5 June 1900, but was only declared a municipal town in 1904. This quirk in history happened during the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

when the

Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name Transvaal. * South African Republic (1856–1902; af, ...

Volksraad The Volksraad was a people's assembly or legislature in Dutch or Afrikaans speaking government. Assembly South Africa *Volksraad (South African Republic) (1840–1902) *Volksraad (Natalia Republic), a similar assembly that existed in the Natalia Re ...

made the town their temporary seat, using railway carriages as their offices and mint after they had to evacuate

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends ...

in the face of a British invasion. A quick-thinking station master rescued a consignment of dying trout by dumping the fish in the Elands River, which formed the start of the town's subsequent role in Mpumalanga's trout tourism industry. With the demise of passenger trains in South Africa, the once-postcard-pretty station closed in 2001 and it is now a derelict ruin. In the 21st century, Machadodorp's residents either work for the industries feeding a chrome smelter, or the logging industries based on the pine plantations surrounding the town. A large contingent of contract workers employed at the Nkomati mine about an hour's drive out of town also reside in Machadodorp, contributing a large part of the town's economy. The

Komati Gorge Komati Gorge is a river valley in the Mpumalanga Province in central South Africa, which features vertical sandstone cliffs that provide habitat for a wide diversity of wildlife. Komati Gorge is located near the communities of Carolina and Mac ...

, notable for its considerable

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

and bluff

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s, forms a backdrop to the town.

Name change

In early 2010 the town (along with

and

Waterval Boven Waterval Boven (officially known as Emgwenya) is a small town situated on the edge of the Escarpment on the banks of the Elands River above the 75m Elands Falls on the railway line from Pretoria to Maputo in Mpumalanga, South Africa. Hence the n ...

) had its name officially changed. The town was renamed from Machadodorp to eNtokozweni, meaning Place of Happiness. It is often still referred to as Machadodorp despite the name change.

baKoni ruins

The hills around the town are terraced with thousands of stone walls which form part of a vast complex of settlements, fields and roads. Some tour guides describe these as South Africa's "real" lost city. South of Machadodorp, on the lands of the farm Rietvlei lies the former Bokoni capital Moxomatsi. Archaeologists and historians have described the ruins as settlements of the

baKoni Bokoni (meaning 'land of the people from the north') was a pre-colonial, agro-pastoral society found in northwestern and southern parts of present-day Mpumalanga province, South Africa. Iconic to this area are stone-walled sites, found in a varie ...

people. Oral records and historical evidence trace the baKoni to at least the early 18th century. The ongoing ''500 Year Initiative'' to rewrite South Africa's history continues to deliver new insights into the extent and complexity of these settlements. An international group of researchers have placed the baKoni settlements in the context of numerous other cases of agricultural intensification, that took place in the precolonial era in different parts of Africa.

Infrastructure

This city has a railway station for the loading and unloading of passengers and cargo on the

Pretoria–Maputo railway Pretoria–Maputo railway, also called Delagoa Bay railway, Iron railway and Eastern railway, is a railway that connects the city of Maputo, Mozambique, to the city of Pretoria, in South Africa. It is 567 km long, in 1067 mm gauge.

.Mozambique Logistics Infrastructure: Mozambique Railway Assessment
Atlassian Confluence. 10 de dezembro de 2018.

References

External links

Machadodorp InfoGoogle Map
{{Nkangala District Municipality Populated places in the Emakhazeni Local Municipality Ruins in South Africa