Sights in South Africa
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Rhino & Lion Nature Reserve
Near the Swartkop Mountains is the Rhino & Lion Nature Reserve. For those who don’t have time to head out for a full-on safari experience, this is a good way to get up close to lions, buffalo, rhinos and other beasties. Lovers of fluffy cuteness can hug baby lions and tigers at the animal crèche. There are three four-person chalets (R855) and wildlife drives (R180) are offered. Within the reserve is Wonder Cave, where you can gaze up at stalactites in an eerily beautiful interior. If you’re planning to do both the reserve and the cave, ask at the gate about the combined ticket that gives a 20% discount.
reviewed
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A
Transplant Museum
Capetonians are very proud that their city was the first place in the world where a successful heart transplant operation was carried out (never mind that the recipient died a few days later). This museum allows you to see the very theatre in Groote Schuur Hospital where history was made in 1967. The displays have a fascinating Dr Kildare quality to them, especially given the heart-throb status of Dr Christiaan Barnard at the time.
To reach the hospital from Observatory Train Station, walk west along Station Rd for about 10 minutes. If you're driving from the city, take the Eastern Blvd (N2) turn-off at Browning Rd, and then turn right on Main Rd.
reviewed
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B
Heart of Cape Town Museum
Capetonians are very proud that their city was the first place in the world where a successful heart transplant operation was carried out (never mind that the recipient died a few days later). This museum allows you to see the very theatre in Groote Schuur Hospital where history was made in 1967. The displays have a fascinating Dr Kildare quality to them, especially given the heartthrob status of Dr Christiaan Barnard at the time. To reach the hospital from Observatory Train Station, walk west along Station Rd for about 10 minutes. If you’re driving from the city, take the Eastern Blvd (N2) turn-off at Browning Rd, and then turn right on Main Rd.
reviewed
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Maynardville Park
Maynardville Park was once the estate of Victorian property magnate James Maynard. His 1870s mansion was demolished when the city took over the grounds in the 1950s, but the old swimming pool remains as a pond and the archery lawn has been replaced by the Maynardville Open-Air Theatre.
reviewed
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Cango Wildlife Ranch
If you’re all ostriched out, head to this ranch. It feels a bit zoolike but contains a good collection of wildlife and big cats (in rather small enclosures). An encounter with cheetahs costs R140, and with the tiger cubs R300 (for over-16s only); funds go to the Cheetah Conservation Foundation. And if shark-cage diving is old hat for you, then you’ll love the crocodile-cage diving here, in a heated pool. The ranch is 3km from town on the road out to Prince Albert. Other big cats here include lions, pumas and Bengal white tigers, and there are also pygmy hippos, alligators and other wild animals.
reviewed
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D
Msunduzi Museum
The Msunduzi Museum, formerly known as the Voortrekker Museum, is a complex incorporating the Church of the Vow, the home of Andries Pretorius, a Voortrekker house and a girls’ school, the museum’s administrative building. The Church of the Vow was built in 1841 to fulfil the Voortrekkers’ promise to God at the Battle of Blood River. The words of the Vow are in the Modern Memorial Church, located next door. More recently, history has been rewritten; the museum has had a name change and heralds itself as a multicultural institution, incorporating Zulu and Indian displays.
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Bird-watching
There is excellent bird-watching throughout Kruger National Park, with the far north (from Punda Maria Gate up past Pafuri Gate) arguably one of the best birding areas on the continent. There are a handful of hides scattered throughout the park; see the birding pages on the website for SAN Parks (www.parks-sa.co.za) for a listing of their locations. Several of the bushveld camps also have their own hides, and some of the larger camps run bird-watching excursions on request.
There is also an annual 24-hour Birding Big Day in January. For information on this, and other birding activities in the park, contact SAN Parks Honorary Rangers.
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Songimvelo Game Reserve
This beautiful 56,000-hectare reserve sits in lowveld country south of Barberton, with high-altitude grassland areas on its eastern edge along the mountainous Swaziland border. There are no lions, but there are numerous other introduced species, including elephants, zebras, giraffes and various antelopes, and both walking and horse riding are popular. (Note that walking is limited to certain areas, and walkers must be accompanied by a guide.) Songimvelo is also home to some of the earth’s oldest rocks – perhaps dating to four billion years ago – and some interesting archaeological sites. You can stay overnight at Kromdraai Camp, with simple, self-catering, six-person…
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E
Freedom Park
One of the most exciting undertakings in Gauteng is Freedom Park. The site chosen for this massive project, on a kopje facing the Voortrekker Monument, provoked an outcry from those who saw this as politically motivated, but this is hardly a self-important ode to nationalism. Rather, it’s a sombre memorial to those people, local and international, who have sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom. At the time of writing you could only visit Hlapho, where the names of heroes have been inscribed, and the peaceful Isivivane Garden of Remembrance. It was scheduled to be completed sometime in 2009.
Visitor numbers to the park are strictly controlled, so calling…
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Highmoor Nature Reserve
The park office of Highmoor Nature Reserve is off the road from Rosetta to Giant’s Castle and Kamberg. Turn off to the south just past the sign to Kamberg, 31km from Rosetta. It’s more exposed and less dramatic than some of the Drakensberg region, but its undulating hills make for pleasant walks. It’s also one of the few places you are driving ‘on top of’ the escarpment, albeit the lower climes of the Drakensbergs. There are two caves, Aasvoel Cave and Caracal Cave, both 2.5km from the main office, and Fultons Rock, which has rock paintings (a 4km easy walk).
There are no chalets here, but campsites are available.
reviewed
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Victoria Mxenge Women’s Group
On a small plot of land just south of the junction of Lansdowne and Ottery Rds is the community of Victoria Mxenge, named after one of the heroes of the freedom struggle. At the community’s centre you can how local women, sick of living in shacks, started a joint savings scheme and taught themselves every aspect of building to design and construct their own homes. For little more than the cost of the very basic RDP home, the women can build three-bedroom homes of around 85 sq metres. So successful has the project been that they now advise other women’s groups around the world how to build homes.
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Rorke’s Drift Orientation Centre
If you have seen Zulu, which was filmed in the Drakensberg, the scenery around Rorke’s Drift may come as a bit of a disappointment. The landscape is still beautifully rugged, however, and the Rorke’s Drift Orientation Centre, on the site of the original mission station, is excellent. The Zulu know this site as Shiyane, their name for the hill at the back of the village. The Rorke’s Drift-Shiyane Self-Guided Trail brochure (R3) is a helpful reference. Two local Zulu guides, Thulani Khuzwayo and Siyabongo Mbatha give a tour of the area.
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Tembe Elephant Park
Heading westwards along a dirt road to the N2 from Kosi Bay, South Africa’s last free-ranging elephants are protected in the sandveld (dry, sandy coastal belt) forests of Tembe Elephant Park, a Transfrontier Park on the Mozambique border, owned by the Tembe Tribe and managed by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife. Around 230 elephants live in its 30,000 hectares; these are the only indigenous elephants in KZN, and the largest elephants in the world, weighing up to 7000kg. The park boasts the Big Five (lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant and rhino), plus more than 300 bird species.
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Lake Eland Game Reserve
Lake Eland Game Reserve has over 40 species of animals, of which, management claims, you are guaranteed to see 80%. You can head off on a self-drives (R25 per person) or a game drive (R100 per person, maximum seven). A short gorge walk crosses a 130m-high suspension bridge, and fishing and canoeing are available. Twitchers will appreciate the 200 bird species. There are well-maintained log cabins overlooking a small lake, fishermen cottages, camping and dorm beds in a massive pipe! It’s 40km from Port Shepstone; drive 29km along the Oribi Flats Rd off the N2.
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Nobel Square
Here’s your chance to have your photo taken with Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. Larger-than-life statues of both men, designed by Claudette Schreuders, stand beside those of South Africa’s two other Nobel Prize winners – Nkosi Albert Luthuli and FW de Klerk – in Waterfront square. Also here is the Peace and Democracy sculpture by Noria Mahasa, which symbolises the contribution of women and children to the struggle. It’s etched with pertinent quotes, translated into all the major languages of the country, by each of the great men.
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KwaMuhle Museum
The excellent KwaMuhle Museum is a must-see for those interested in understanding South Africa. This was formerly Bantu Administration headquarters, where Durban’s colonial authorities formulated the structures of urban racial segregation (the ‘Durban System’), the blueprints of South Africa’s apartheid policy. There are powerful displays on urban Durban as it was, plus another on Cato Manor, Durban’s contemporary informal settlement and the site of the new South Africa’s ambitious urban-renewal program.
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Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve
At almost 30km long Blyde River Canyon is one of South Africa’s most outstanding natural features. Much of it is bordered by the 26,000-hectare Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve, which winds its way north from Graskop, following the Drakensberg Escarpment and meeting the Blyde River as it snakes down to the lowveld. The majority of visitors drive along the canyon’s edge, and there are plenty of viewpoints along the way where you can stop and gaze in awe. If you have enough time, however, it’s even better explored on foot.
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SAB World of Beer
The SAB World of Beer offers a ridiculously good-value 90-minute jaunt through the history of beer, as narrated on video by hokey characters including a Bavarian brew master, an Egyptian explorer and Charles Glass, the founder of Castle breweries. On your journey through the beer-making process you’ll wander through a fake Egyptian temple, taste chibuku in a mock African village and sample a cheeky half pint at a re-created Victorian pub. If that weren’t enough your ticket also includes two pints in the bar afterwards.
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National Women’s Memorial
Commemorating the 26,000 women and children who died in British concentration camps during the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer War, the National Women’s Memorial depicts a bearded Afrikaner, setting off on his pony to fight the British, bidding a last farewell to his wife and baby, who are to perish in one of the camps. It’s a powerful image and one still buried in the psyche of many Afrikaners.
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Ardmore Ceramic Studio
The extraordinary Ardmore Ceramic Studio was started by artist Fée Halset-Berning. She trained Bonnie Ntshalintsahli, the daughter of a farm employee. Sadly, Bonnie has since passed away, but the studio has flourished with a group of highly gifted artists who create the most extraordinary pieces of ceramic art, some functional, others ornamental. So renowned are the pieces, that Christie’s holds an annual auction of selected items. You can see the artists at work in the studio; works are for sale, too.
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Chavonnes Battery Museum
This excellent interpretative museum houses the remains of Cape Town’s oldest cannon battery outside of the Castle of Good Hope, dating from 1726. Although they had been partly demolished and built over during the construction of the docks in 1860, an excavation of the site in 1999 revealed the remains. You can walk around the entire site and get a good feel for what it would have originally been like. It’s also staffed by costumed enthusiasts who sometimes like to shoot off a real cannon in front of the museum on Sunday at noon.
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Rondevlei Nature Reserve
Hippos hadn’t lived in the marshes here for 300 years until they were reintroduced in 1981 to this small, picturesque nature reserve northeast of Muizenberg. There are now seven hippos, but they’re shy creatures and it’s unlikely that you’ll spot them unless you stay overnight – for details contact Imvubu Nature Tours, based at the reserve. You can also book a guided walk during which you can spot some 231 species of birds from the waterside trail, two viewing towers and hides.
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Shongweni Resource Reserve
Shongweni Resource Reserve, about halfway between Durban and Pietermaritzburg off the N3, is Rte 5 and Rte 6 of the 1000 Hills Experience. Part of a beautiful river valley and grassland area, it has a number of mammals (including giraffes, zebras and rhinos) and birds. Canoeing is available (R75/90 per half/full day). The reserve has massive safari-style tents erected on wooden platforms perched over the lake’s edge. Each has a small balcony and an outdoor table and basic kitchen facilities. Camping costs R70 per person.
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Conservatory
The main entrance at the Newlands end of the gardens is where you’ll find plenty of parking, the information centre, an excellent souvenir shop and the atmosphere-controlled conservatory. The conservatory displays plant communities from a variety of terrains, the most interesting of which is the Namaqualand and Kalahari section, with baobabs and quiver trees. Further along Rhodes Dr is the Rycroft Gate entrance, the first you’ll come to if you approach the gardens from Constantia.
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Montecasino
Jo’burg’s answer to Las Vegas, Montecasino, a shopping and entertainment centre based around (surprise) a large casino, is cheese personified. It includes a recreated Tuscan village complete with an artificial early-evening sky, fake trees, cobbled pavements, hilltop towers and even a vintage Fiat. It also includes the Pieter Toerien Theatre and the earthy Montecasino Bird Gardens, where you can get a blast of country air in the heart of the city.
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