Half-Day Tours

Soweto Tour & drive through Johannesburg
Maropeng & Caves
Lion Park
De Wildt Cheetah Project
Lesedi Cultural Village
Elephant Sanctuary
Rhino & Lion Park
Pretoria
Gold Reef City Mine

Tel:

+2711 4633306

Fax:

+2711 4638040

Mobile:

+2782 379 1502

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Soweto Tour & drive through Johannesburg

On this tour you will see: (NOTE: Mandela House Museum NOW OPEN)

The Nelson Mandela Bridge

The largest cable-stayed bridge in southern Africa, 284 m long crossing over 42 operational railway lines linking Braamfontein and the north of Johannesburg to Newtown in the heart of the city's central business district.

Hector Pieterson Museum

Hector Pieterson (1964 - 16 June 1976) became the iconic image of the 1976 Soweto Uprising, where school children protested over the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in township schools, when a news photograph by Sam Mzima of the dying Hector being carried by a fellow student, was published around the world. He was killed at the age of 12 when the police opened fire on protesting students. By the end of the fateful day 556 children were dead. For years, 16 June stood as a symbol of resistance to the brutality of the apartheid government. Today, it's known as National Youth Day - a day on which South Africans honour young people and bring attention to their needs.

Pitso or Petersen or Pieterson? Since June 1976, Hector's surname has been spelt "Petersen". Now the family insists that the correct spelling is "Pieterson". That's not the full story. The Pieterson family was originally the Pitso family. It decided to adopt the Pieterson name to try to pass as "coloured", a minority grouping who had slightly better privileges, like marginally higher wages. Antoinette Sithole, Hector's sister, says that before she married she had always been "Pieterson", but that she and her siblings had always considered it a joke.

Regina Mundi Church

No trip to Soweto in Johannesburg is complete without a visit to Regina Mundi, the largest Catholic Church in the most populous black urban residential area in the country. Not only has the vast church always been a spiritual haven for thousands of Sowetans, it has also played a pivotal role in the township's history of resistance against apartheid. As such it is a well-circled destination on the tourist map: every day the church opens its doors to streams of visitors keen to witness the scars it still bears from the Soweto uprisings, when police stormed through its doors, firing live ammunition at fleeing students. But both before and after the dramas of the Soweto uprisings, Regina Mundi - whose name in Latin means Queen of the World - has quietly offered its protection to those struggling for liberation. When political meetings were banned, people sought the safety of Regina Mundi - if not Queen of the World, then surely Queen of Soweto - to form their political strategies.

Freedom Square

The site of the signing of the historic Freedom Charter by anti-apartheid organizations in 1955, is to be the center of a massive upgrade project to revive the Kliptown area. The square will be renamed Walter Sisulu Square in honour of the 90-year-old former ANC leader.

Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital

The story of Bara starts soon after the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand.
A young Cornish lad, John Albert Baragwanath, arrived on the gold fields to make his fortune. The surname "Baragwanath" was derived from the Welsh word "Bara", which means bread, and "gwanath" meaning wheat. After trying a number of projects, John Albert started a refreshment post, Soon he had a small hostel, "The Wayside Inn". However, to the transport drivers, and stagecoach passengers, it was "Baragwanath's Place" or just Baragwanath. It is the largest hospital in the world, occupying 173 acres, with 3200 beds and 6760 staff members. The hospital is in Soweto, South Africa - just outside Johannesburg. It is one of the 40 Gauteng provincial hospitals, and is financed and run by the Gauteng provincial Health Authorities. Opened in 1941 by Prime Minister Smuts as the Royal Imperial Hospital, Baragwanath, the facility was known as Baragwanath Hospital from 1948. The name Chris Hani was added in 1997 to honour a slain African National Congress and South African Communist Party member. More than two thousand patients check in to the hospital daily and nearly half of them are HIV positive.

Mandela House Museum

PLEASE NOTE: The Mandela House Museum is NOW OPEN.

Nelson Mandela's humble little house in Orlando West, Soweto, now called the
Mandela Family Museum, is an interesting stopover for those keen to imbibe a slice of authentic history on the world's most famous former prisoner.

Maropeng and Caves

Maropeng, situated in the Cradle of Humankind in Gauteng province, South Africa, it is a world-acclaimed tourist destination that is not only part of the South African national pride, but appeals to the world. Maropeng, which is a Setswana word meaning ‘returning to the place of our origins’, takes visitors on a fun and informative journey of discovery using spectacular methods to tell stories of the evolution of life and the origins of humankind. It denotes the universal relevance of the Cradle of Humankind as the ancestral home of all, no matter what colour, culture or creed.

The Tumulus building is a first of it’s kind in the world! It is designed to look like an ancient burial mound from the front, upon exiting one then looks back on a very modern structure. The architecture is symbolic of the journey through the evolution of life.
Newly opened 260m2 exhibition consists of four large show cases which include life like models of hominids, a sabre tooth cat, a reconstruction of a mined cave vs a pristine cave, cave formations and geologies, early life forms, fossils in general, specific finds (like Mrs Ples, Taung Child, Little Foot), details of fossilization, paleo botany and landscapes.

Lion Park

The Lion Park is home to over 80 lions including the rare white lions and many other carnivores such as cheetah, wild dog, brown and spotted hyena and black backed jackal and a wide variety of antelope which roam freely in the antelope area.

De Wildt Cheetah Project

De Wildt is a wildlife conservation project focusing on the preservation of endangered species, in particular the cheetah. Since 1974 Scientists at De Wildt have been studying and successfully breeding cheetah and other rare animals for release into the wild. The station is set in the bushveld of Magaliesberg.

Cheetah Distribution in South Africa:
Historically cheetah occurred through South Africa. Until recently cheetah only occurred in large protected areas such as the Kruger National Park and some adjacent private game reserves. Currently cheetahs are been seen on farmland areas in the Limpopo Province, certain areas of the North West Province and in areas of the Northern Cape Province. It is thought that the growth in the game ranching industry is the main reason for this, as more habitat and more prey species become available due to the game ranching practices. Other large predators such as leopard, lion and spotted hyena are also not common any more, due to persecution by farmers. These large predators act as competitors to cheetah, and due to the eradication of these predators, cheetahs seem to be moving into areas where they have been previously exterminated by stock farmers. This is causing conflict between game farmers and cheetah as these cheetahs are preying on game species introduced by game farmers on these game farming areas.

Lesedi Cultural Village

Lesedi Cultural Village is a multi culture village set amongst the pristine bushveld and rocky hills, less than an hour's drive north of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Browse in a Ndebele village and African craft market where Ndebele murals decorate the walls and courtyard; Attend a multi-visual theatre presentation on the history and origin of our peoples. Guests are divided into smaller groups and taken on a guided tour of four homesteads – Zulu, Xhosa, Basotho and Pedi; After a few drinks in the bar, guests and the families meet back in the Boma for traditional song and dance of all the villages. The dance culminates in communal dancing with the guests around the fire. A Pan African Feast is served in the Nyama Choma restaurant with delicacies from North, East and Southern Africa.

Elephant Sanctuary

An elephant experience for life. The elephant sanctuary provides a safe - haven for elephants and offers a platform for guest education and interaction. Rescued African elephants have gained trust through a unique reward based training. Forming bonds between humans and elephants, the elephants are exercised and stimulated daily which provides a firm foundation for trust. The focus is on education through interaction, so you will not only learn a lot about elephants, but also get to touch, feel, walk trunk - in – hand. Duration approximately 2½ hours and lunch is on the main deck overlooking the elephants.

Rhino & Lion Park

The Rhino & Lion Nature Reserve is a privately owned non – subsidized game reserve, covering approximately 1100 ha on the typical Highveld of Gauteng. Successful breeding project of white Rhino’s, introduction of Lions, Cheetah’s and endangered Wild Dog.

From a modest beginning of two white rhinos, "Ouvrou" and "Bulle", imported from a zoo in Germany, and some antelope species, the reserve now boasts 600 head of game representing 25 different species.

Pretoria

Drive through the administrative capital of South Africa to the Union Buildings,
Kruger House Museum and the Voortrekker Monument.

Gold Reef City Mine

The underground mine tour takes place in the world’s richest and deepest gold mines and
go down 57 levels or 3 500 meters. Over its 90-year lifespan the mine has produced some
1.4 million kilograms of gold, blasted out of the ground by 30 000 miners. As you step out
the lift underground, you look ahead to a whitewashed tunnel and walk down two-metre high tunnels, with a hardhat and a torch. There is even an underground pub if you feel like some refreshements!