Groote Schuur

Your Cape Town tour can include a visit to the Grootte Schuur Hospital. Cecil Rhodes acquired the Groote Schuur ('great barn') estate in 1893 and bequeathed it to the South African nation on his death in 1902. A delightful estate on the slopes of Devil's Peak, it includes the Cape Town residences of the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, a small game reserve, the Rhodes Memorial, the University of Cape Town and its medical school, and the Groote Schuur Hospital. Groote Schuur estate shares its name with that of the former residence of the Prime Minister. In its present handsome form, the house was the creation of Cecil Rhodes and famous architect, Sir Herbert Baker. The building was originally a storage barn built by Jan van Riebeeck. It had been converted into a house in later years by English owners, then acquired by Rhodes, partly burned down by fire, and then rebuilt. Adjoining the grounds of Groote Schuur Rhodes built a second house. This was named Woolsack and was used as a summer residence by Rudyard Kipling, a great friend of Rhodes. This house is now used as a residence by the University of Cape Town. The official residence of the President of South Africa, Westbrooke, is close to Groote Schuur. The three houses stand in a fine setting of trees and gardens. Large paddocks on the eastern slopes of Devil's Peak and Table Mountain provide grazing grounds for herds of antelope, which include gnu, eland, zebra and bontebok. Until recently there was also a small zoo on the estate. In founding the zoo, Rhodes bestowed a mixed blessing on Cape Town. Among the animals he imported were thars (Himalayan mountain goats). Some escaped and fled up Table Mountain where they rapidly increased in numbers. The descendants of the thars remained on the mountain until quite recently. Chinese deer and American grey squirrels were other imports by Rhodes whose numbers now cause concern. The Rhodes Memorial was built in 1912 on a site particularly beloved by him. It is an impressive monument, designed by Francis Masey and Sir Herbert Baker. The powerful equestrian bronze by G. F. Watts, Energy, dominates the memorial, with eight lions guarding a flight of stairs leading to a granite building sheltering a bronze head of Rhodes. Underneath the bust are the words Kipling wrote on Rhodes's death: 'The immense and brooding spirit still shall quicken and control. Living he was the land and dead his soul shall be her soul.' The memorial stands in a setting of stone pines, and the view out across the Cape Flats is splendid. The University of Cape Town, founded in 1829 as the South African College, moved to its present site on the Groote Schuur estate in 1925. It is one of the oldest universities in the southern hemisphere. The vast white building complex of the Groote Schuur Hospital, where the world's first human heart trans-plant was performed by Professor Christiaan Barnard in 1967, borders the estate on the west. It is a major research center. Patients from many parts of the world come to Groote Schuur and the most complex heart surgery is per-formed here by teams of specialists.

Natale Labia Museum – Muizenberg

Visit Cape Town whenever you have the opportunity and visit the Natale Labia Museum. Fine furniture and an impressive art col-lection are housed in what used to be called The Fort, former seaside villa of Prince Natale Labia and his wife, Princess Ida Louise. Prince Natale was a between-wars Italian diplomat who worked tirelessly to promote trade and cultural links between his country and South Africa. But Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia in the mid-1930s put an abrupt end to his work. He died of a heart attack in 1936. His widow, daughter of the powerful, wealthy and widely unpopular randlord, J B Robin-son, loaned her father's collection of old masters to the South African National Gallery. A small part (27 works) of the loan was later converted to an outright gift by her son. These, together with some of the original furniture, now fill the ground floor of the museum. The upper floor has been skilfully converted into a temporary exhibition space, lecture room and offices. The building is one of considerable charm and grandeur, commanding magnificent views of False Bay and the distant Hottentots Holland Mountains.

Golde Acre - Cape Town

When you are on your Cape Town Tour, be sure to vis the Golden Acre. The Golden Acre is a cosmopolitan complex of department stores, specialty shops, restaurants and coffee houses, cinemas and offices, all forming part of an even larger concourse that runs beneath Adderley Street and adjacent thoroughfares. Among points I inked by the bustling and largely subterranean passages are the railway station, the bus and air terminals, the sky-scraping Cape Sun Inter-Continental Hotel, two parking garages and a pedestrian mall connected to the old General Post Office building, now a busy indoor market. Along the fringe of the Golden Acre are Cape Town's famed and philosophical flower-sellers. The Golden Acre is close to the site of the primitive, leaky-walled fort built in the early 1650s by the first Dutch settlers, though nothing remains of the structure. A small reservoir, or dam, dating back to the commandership of Jan van Riebeeck's successor, Zacharias Wagenaer, was uncovered during building excavations for the Golden Acre, and the thoughtful architects redrew their plans to retain the relics in situ. They're now attractively displayed behind glass.

African Herbalist’s Shop – Diagonal Street

A visit to the African Herbalist's Shop (also known as the Museum of Man and Science) in downtown Johannesburg will be an enlightening experience for those who have used only traditional Western medicine when ill. Exhibits of skins, claws and wings jostle with the more mundane roots, bark, powders and potions which pack this shop. Consider the fact that there are over 200000 African traditional healers in South Africa and you will realize that the muti sold in this shop is not an oddity, but the source of the majority of South Africans' healing supplies. Inyangas, or izinyanga, (herbalists) and sangomas, or izangoma, (diviners) use a huge variety of plants in their work. Some are used as charms — for example, as a love charm (Crabbea hirsuta) — or for strictly medicinal purposes. Wild ginger (Acridompus natalitius), for example, is used for coughs and colds. Luckily for the curious, there is a daily tour and a museum is planned.

Johannesburg can be the perfect start to your Kruger National Park Self Drive.

Ben Albert Nature Reserve - Thabazimbi

The muted colours of the bushveld vegetation — silver and fawn, dun, grey-green and gold— contrast sharply with the rust-red soil of the terrain in this out-of-the-way bushveld sanctuary, lying in rolling hills at the foot of the Ysterberg, near Thabazimbi. Thabazimbi means 'mountain of iron', and the region's soils and rocks are indeed rich in iron ore, which has been mined here for some centuries, first by Sotho people, and now by the Iron and Steel Corporation (Iscor). Iscor laid out the town of Thabazimbi in 1953, and later established the Ben Alberts Nature Reserve as a recreational facility for its employees. The reserve covers some 2000 ha, and is watered by the Crocodile River, which is flanked by steep hillsides. In the back-ground, the Kransberg (highest peak of the Waterberg range) is a magnificent and brooding presence. A network of good gravel roads criss-crosses the reserve (visitors will find a map printed on the back of their entrance tickets). Some routes take you to lookout points commanding panoramic views of the reserve. Here you can expect to spot an abundance of game, including such mammals as white rhinos, kudu, blue wildebeest, giraffes, eland, zebras and warthogs. There is also a wide variety of bird life for the enthusiast.

A number tented bush camps are found on private game drives in the area where guests can stay when they want to visit the Ben Alberts Nature Reserve.

Private Kruger Safaris

Private Kruger Safaris offer guests the opportunity to explore the Kruger National Park with their own private tour guide and vehicle. This allows guests to explore the Kruger National Park without having to worry about finding the best routes to find the famous Big Five or how to approach sightings of the Big Five.

Private Kruger Safaris will start from any location in Pretoria, preferably in the before 12:00 allowing enough time to reach the Kruger National Park before the gates closes. If guests leave after 12:00 when they travel from Pretoria, a night on route to the Kruger National Park in Dullstroom needs to be included.

Travel to Kruger suggests a minimum of two nights when you visit the Kruger National Park. This will allow you an afternoon, full day and morning in the Kruger National Park. An extra day or two will increase the opportunity to see Lion and the rest of the Big Five.

Accommodation can be in 3 star camps with no meals included.

Game viewing is good all through the year but best during dry winter of April to September. Many animals congregate on the dry river beds and water holes for drinking water in the early mornings. October to March is the rainy season when the park blossoms with plenty of lush pastures with fewer sights of grazing animals. Taking game drives is rewarding in the early mornings and evening. There are also 130 recorded rock paintings in the park you can visit en route.

Activity of the Month - The Rhino and Lion Park

40 kilometres north-west from Johannesburg, you will find the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve. Visiting the reserve on a guided tour and safari will offer the chance to see white rhino, lion, buffalo, hippo and a number of other species of game.

The best time to visit the reserve is as feeding time, you’re virtually guaranteed to see predators, as they are hand-fed – a bit like cheating, but a big bonus if you haven’t the time to head off on a Kruger Safari to the Kruger National Park on safari. You can also select to go on a game drive offered by the reserve with a knowledgeable ranger, and with roughly 600 head of game within the reserve, a visit is bound to include almost all of the reserve’s species - endangered species such as cheetah, wild dog and the Cape vulture.

The highlight of any visit to the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve, which covers 1200 hectares of land, is without doubt a visit to see the lion cubs, one of the species that forms part of the reserve’s breeding programme. Most of the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve’s focus is on their breeding programme. No fewer than 18 white rhino calves have been born on the reserve. Other animals bred here include the Cape wild dog, Bengal tigers, Siberian tigers and the white lion.

Another interesting project of the reserve is the vulture restaurant – literally a way of providing the vultures that live in the surrounding Magaliesberg with carcasses, donated by local farmers. Up to 200 birds feast at a time in the reserve.

The Rhino and Lion Park is the perfect stop on you South Africa Tour if you did not have the opportunity to visit any of South Africa’s natural areas.