Gold rush to hit Pilgrim’s Rest
The sport has become a favourite for the people of Pilgrim’s Rest and surrounding areas.
This year marks 20 years of the National Gold Panning Championships in Pilgrim’s Rest. The Championships, which started in 1997 in South Africa with less than a 100 participants, now boasts almost 600 participants. The department of Sports, Culture and Recreation will be sponsoring the event.
According to the departments’ spokesperson Sibongile Nkosi, the main purpose of gold panning is to preserve the heritage of the sport whilst bringing about social cohesion as it brings South Africans of all races together.
“Having hosted two world Championships, 2005 and 2012 respectively, South Africa continues to produce some of the best panners in the world who recently represented the country in Scotland,” said Nkosi.
The event will take place between 4 and 7 October at Pilgram’s Rest.
What is Gold Panning:
Gold panning is a sport where each competitor receives a regulation gold pan and a bucket of sand in which a number of gold nuggets are hidden. The winner will have panned out the most nuggets in the shortest time. The Chief Judge only knows the number of nuggets in the buckets of sand and participants are penalised for lost nuggets.
