A Tourist Couple of Days

Johannesburg – the most treed city I’ve seen anywhere in the world and for our visit the jacaranda trees are just starting their display:

Daytime temperatures are in the mid 20s and evenings are in the mid teens. Fantastic temperatures for outdoor patio eating in the evening and walking in the daytime.

Our 5 hour walking tour of downtown Johannesburg started in the building that was once the South African Stock exchange.

Our guide for the day was Charlie

Charlie is from a tour company that offers an incredible variety of tours in Johannesburg. If you’re coming down this way then I can highly recommend connecting with https://www.localplaces.co.za We spent 5 hours with Charlie, who was incredibly articulate and knowledgeable.

Of course, by  the end of the tour we collapsed and found a great restaurant in the Rosebank Mall; a plate of ribs and a bowl of potatoes all for CDN$12!

We’re getting spoilt from all the good food and from the Hadeda Guest House – https://www.hadedahall.com – where we are staying. We have a lovely unit with access to a garden for relaxing

The hosts, Bryan and Maiky, are very welcoming and helpful. They make incredible breakfasts. It’s always great to start off the day on a full stomach. That keeps us going to dinner intersperced with a snack or two and a drink during the day.

We were invited by Bryan and Maiky to join them for dinner on the night of the rugby game between South Africa and England. What a night – dinner brai on the rooftop patio and then a wild night of celebration over South Africa’s win. This coming Saturday, we are going to have to be somewhere where we can watch the All Blacks and South Africa battle it out over the rugby field.

The second day of ‘be a tourist in Johannesburg’ was spent at the incredible Apartheid Museum – https://www.apartheidmuseum.org To do this museum justice one needs to set aside a good part of the day. It’s incredibly comprehenive, pulling together the entire development of the apartheid laws and stories that culminated in an incredibly harsh segregation of the entire population.

We spent 3.5 hours wandering through the numerous displays including video, print material, photos and audio exhibits.

But time was pressing. We needed to shop and prepare for our upcoming sojourn into Botswana. Food supplies needed to be found and purchased, and that’s always a challenge in a place that one doesn’t know.

Next will be our pick up on Tuesday by Bushlore where we will get taken to our truck which will be home for the next three and a half weeks.

See you on the road…