Vredefort Dome

Let Southbound take you to the Vredefort Dome and back in time to where it all started—The Big Bang! To how our world began, and then, when it was all perfectly formed around two billion years ago— Wham! Another big bang—this time an uninvited intruder from outer space in the form of a whopping 190-kilometre-diameter meteorite that smashed into Earth near today’s little town of Vredefort in central South Africa.

* The Vredefort Dome, South Africa’s seventh and least-known World Heritage Site, is the site of the largest and oldest meteorite impact structure on Earth ? Deep Impact: the formation of the dome and how the ground was turned literally inside out in a matter of minutes ? Described by UNESCO as “the world’s greatest known single energy release eventâ€

* With consequences of global destruction, burying of the Witwatersrand goldfields and, perhaps, evolutionary change

* Accommodation and activities: comprehensive listings of tourist facilities and routes in and around the picturesque town of Parys at the centre of the Dome region