We have a list of places to visit and things to do while we are in South Africa. One of these locations is Bush Babies Monkey Sanctuary. The monkey sanctuary is located in Hartbeesport which is about an hour drive away from our area of town.

Whenever we visit a ‘new to us’ area I am a little nervous due to safety concerns. It is especially concerning when driving by very poor areas of town or past signs stating “smash & grab warning” or “hijacking area!”. As white people we are automatically made potential targets for crime and also racism. It has been really interesting being on the flip side of prejudice, profiling and racism.

As it turns out we were safe and the drive to bush babies was really beautiful. It was so different from the city and really reminded us of the Okanagan area of BC. We had to cross the top of Hartbeesport Dam which was controlled by a traffic light and only allowed one-way traffic through a tunnel which led to the Dam. It was really cool to drive over. The monkey sanctuary itself was neat. We saw lots of spider monkeys and walked for an hour along winding wooden pathways. The highlight for me personally was the Magaliesberg mountain range that the sanctuary is located. They are really stunning especially with all the tall trees we walked through on the wooden walkways. Claire & Rhys were pretty tired during the guided tour so we carried them most of the way. They did have fun though and liked the little play area at the sanctuary entrance. They were happy kids on the drive back with their new monkey stuffies.

On our drive back home Jimmy spotted a new skate spot at the local highschool. We stopped and had a run about the sports fields. The kids and I always like watching Jimmy skate so we had fun observing too. Once we got back to our home safely Jimmy realized there was an actual skatepark in a resort at Hartbeesport so we are making plans to go back and spend a night. There are so many other places to visit in that area including the elephant sanctuary and the world heritage site- ‘The cradle of humankind’ which is the world’s richest hominin site & home to around 40% of the world’s human ancestor fossils. Lots of caves in this area to visit too.

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Johannesburg features some spectacular thunderstorms. They are an almost daily occurrence this time of year. We read on many expat blogs prior to our move that when a storm hits to unplug your TVs, computers, and other electrical equipment. So far so good…no electronic meltdowns.

The storms are quite something. The thunder is so loud. Because the storms hit in the evenings and our kids sleep with a rainfall sound machine they haven’t woken up to the loud noise. Here are a few pictures of our latest thunderstorm….

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While I was away on my third work rotation in Botswana Jimmy did some further park and playground reconnaissance. I am always amazed at how adventurous Jimmy is while I am away. While it could simply be his intuitive search for skate spots, the end result is most often a fun new place for our family to play.

Rhodes park was a recent discovery of Jimmy’s and it’s a great sunny day location. There is a huge pond with ducks, numerous sports fields, a few playground areas, pretty rolling hills and various water features. One of the neat things about Joburg parks is the play equipment takes us back to our years as kids in the 70’s and 80’s. They are partially unsafe at times but still plenty of fun!

In general, sport is such a huge part of life in South Africa. There are soccer games or rugby games in progress at all the fields we drive by. It’s really great because the kids are really interested on what is going on. We spend most evenings at a local sports field running around with soccer balls. We had fun at Rhodes park watching a game on this day.

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Rhys really into being a cowboy- yeehaw!:

We finally found a home for us to settle into, yay! Having been here for over a month, you’d figure we would’ve had this sorted out by now. In actual fact, finding a home that is furnished, safe, kid-friendly and flexible with our short 6 month term proved to be a tricky thing. We looked at so many places with too many estate agents. In the end we decided to stay in the hotel we were first situated when we arrived in Joburg, but in a different more comfortable way.

Truth be told, there are many privately owned units in this hotel which are brighter, more spacious and have better functioning amenities such as a washer/ dryer and heat– all things we needed. The location was always great here and there is pool, gym and cafe on site too. I think the biggest thing for us was the safety and familiarity. We were recently at a park and a reporter came up to Jimmy asking for his comments on the recent rise of home invasions in Bedfordview -the suburb we’re in! This had us thinking for sure.

The kids love the new place as there are stairs leading up to a cool bedroom with a roof top deck featuring a stunning sunrise/sunset view. The weather here is great even though it is transitioning to fall so sitting up on the deck having some lunch and blowing bubbles is a favourite past-time.

We have lots of space if you want to come visit 😉

While searching for skateboard locations on the internet I found a spot in the nearby suburb of Edenvale. The website requested skaters/users keep the location in good care as the smooth surface is on loan from the sizable sports field attached. When I got there I discovered people haven’t really been listening; lots of windswept debris littered about, smashed windows, etc. Seeing as there was a homeless encampment at one end of the area (and it was the early hour of 9:15am) I kept my skate session mellow. Any skate shots of me are video-grabs from me filming myself by positioning my iPhone on the yellow barrier seen in the panorama photo. Upon my exit I saw a drainage ditch that had some skate potential. I later bailed on the idea of skating it –the septic smell proved to be the definite detractor.

– Jimmy

Click on panorama pic to view larger:

Just before my last work rotation to Botswana we visited one of the hot attractions in Johannesburg… or at least one of the attractions we had bookmarked as ‘to visit’ before arriving in this city- The Lion Park. The drive was about 45 minutes from our home and rather than taking the highway this time we decided to try a different route via our Garmin. This route took us through so many suburbs and interesting areas. It was nice seeing more of the city.

The Lion park was great. Lots for us to see and do. We did a 45 minute guided tour through the grounds and saw lots of animals- lions, cheetah, wild dogs, ostrich, giraffe, Springbok, Gemsbok, Zebra… and more. The highlight for all of us was being able to pet lion cubs and feeding the giraffes. The kids had such a great time and for about a week afterwards they pretended they were lions which was very cute.

Jimmy took a zillion pictures and they were all good so it took us a long time to select our favorite ones for this post….

 

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