Once in a lifetime experiences...

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Last night we went to the Playhouse to see Swan Lake performed by the legendary St Petersburg Ballet Company – currently touring South Africa. I can’t say I’m the biggest ballet fan, and, tired after a long weekend away with late nights and early mornings, I micro-slept now and then during the 3hr+ show.

Still, the dancing is exceptionally beautiful, the costumes and sets are stunningly rich and detailed, the male dancers have the most defined legs (and buttocks) you’ve ever seen, and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see the centuries old Company in action.



Speaking of rare experiences, here’s the run-down on the rest of my Johannesburg weekend, starting with some Random observations about Joburg

1) Everyone smokes!
2) People commute huge distances (40-60km+) to do anything
3) Gauteng drivers are terrible
4) In Joburg you queue for everything
5) It’s lip-cracking dry and fricken freezing in Winter.


We went to Gold Reef City on Saturday. Mostly we went for the once-in-a-lifetime experience of doing the underground mine tour – you descend 250m below the earth’s surface into a retired mine shaft. Plus you get to touch a genuine solid gold bar worth R1.5 million.



We also took some time to check out the theme park side of Gold Reef. It reminded me a lot thematically of Knottsbury Farm in California – that whole Frontier/rugged prospector experience. But things aren’t as organised, and it’s a bit of a rip-off really. You spend a lot of time in very slow moving queues because there is only one rollercoaster on a track at the time, as opposed to 2, so that people are always getting onboard while others are riding.


Plus the park closes at an obscenely early 5pm, so you are prevented from joining ride queues from around 3:45. Very disappointing. We only went on 2 rides the whole day.

So, yeah, if you want to go on rollercoasters and assorted other thrill rides at Gold Reef, go during the week. And not on a rainy day because then everything shuts down and there are no refunds. Typical South African customer service...

On Sunday we joined forumite, and my former GEAR editor, Walt (we missed him when he was last in Durban) and his girlfriend for breakfast and a pleasant stroll around Johannesburg Zoo, which really puts Durban’s Mitchell Park to shame. Our pics of the chimps, gorilla, tiger and polar bears weren’t that great, but here are some of the other interesting, rare inhabitants, including wild cat (who were hunting a poor little parrot who landed on top of their enclosure), and sleeping white lion.






And here's a pretty cool shot as we departed from Johannesburg International Airport on our Mango flight.

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