Nqweba Dam, formerly known as the Van Ryneveld’s Dam, was completed in 1925 and is situated in the Camdeboo National Park which surrounds the town of Graaff- Reinet in the Eastern Cape. The dam wall is 381m wide and 32m high and the dam itself covers over 1 000 hectares, offering a variety of water activities which include boating, fishing, canoeing and windsurfing.
Welcome to wildlife
For the birders out there, Nqweba Dam attracts a wide variety of birds. If you bring along your camera, you might well take snaps of the buffalo, springbok and wildebeest that come down to the water’s edge. If you’re hooked on fishing then you will find Nqweba Dam to be the fishing haven you’ve always dreamed of. It has excellent stocks of African catfish (Clarias gariepinus), round herring (Gilchristella aestuaria), common carp (Cyprinus carpio), moggel (Labeo umbratus), mullet (Mugil cephalus), mosquito fish (Gambusia affinus) and river goby (Glossogobius callidus). A permit is required for fishing on the dam and it can be purchased from the Camdeboo National Park Office, located on the N9 Middelburg road. The breathtaking sunrises and sunsets at Nqweba Dam are something to behold.
