So much to do over weekends in Joburg: Why not head out to Toadbury Hall in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. Toadbury Hall offers specially packed picnic baskets to enjoy outdoors under a shady tree or in the warm sunshine. The menu changes with the seasons and includes a range of handmade snacks, [...]

The Maropeng Visitor Centre recently launched a new walking tour to give amateur paleoanthropologists insight into the exciting fossil record to be found in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site.    The new half-day tour called Bone Detectives is an introduction to human evolution and how fossils provides clues about our ancestors who lived millions [...]

The fossils of Australopithecus sediba are to be exhibited once again at Maropeng,  from September 9 to September 26.   The adult female specimen, MH-2, will feature prominently in a new display called More secrets of sediba revealed, along with other fossils from the Malapa site in the Cradle of Humankind.     There will be tours which will be [...]

I blogged on the tours to Swartkrans in the Cradle of humankind  http://lizatlancaster.co.za/blog/cradle-of-humankind-fascinating-tour-of-our-originsn but now there are opportunties to visit Cooper’s Cave, a relatively new excavation site in the Cradle of Humankind, with Wits University palaeoanthropologist Christine Steininger. For R350 per person, including lunch, you get to explore the cave, interact with Christine while she explains fossils and the site, [...]

I have blogged before about one of Jozi’s best kept secrets – Nirox Sculpture Park out in the Cradle … http://lizatlancaster.co.za/blog/76 and http://lizatlancaster.co.za/blog/taking-cultural-symbols-out-of-context-nirox-sculpture-park , and now there is another opportunity to go out and experience this gem of a parkland. Do yourselves a favour and make a trip out there to see Eric Pladevall’s massive sculptures in his [...]

11th sept: Visit Cooper’s Cave situated 1.2km from the famous Sterkfontein Caves near Johannesburg,  a relatively new excavation site where several species of animals and a number of stone tools have been found. Activities on offer for the morning include an interactive fossil and site talk, cave exploration and fossil finding, and an opportunity to [...]

 O n Sunday 6th June I went to the opening of Andrew Lamprecht’s sculpture exhibition at the Nirox Sculpture Foundation out on the Kromdraai Rd in the Cradle. The Nirox grounds are quite beautiful – a magnificent park designed by the well-known landscape architect Patrick Watson whose most famous creation is the Sun City gardens.   This [...]

A team led by Professor Lee Berger, a renowned palaeoanthropologist from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (aka Wits University) has described and named a new species of hominid, Australopithecus sediba, almost two million years old, which was discovered in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, 40 kilometres out of Johannesburg, South Africa.   “Sediba, [...]

 Chris Thurman enagaged in conversation with Prof Philip Tobias world-renowned paleo-anthroplogist at the Boekehuis this Saturday.  In addition to his ground breaking work with hominids, Tobias has also been very influential as an anatomist, a geneticist, is an expert on medic-legal ethics and  … is a keen lover of cricket!  With a twinking eye and a razor sharp sense of humour [...]

WORLD CUP Base Camps and Group Games

Grp

Team

Base Camps
In Gauteng &  Rustenburg Area  In  Johannesburg

Group matches in Gauteng & Rustenburg  (EP = Ellis Park; SC = Soccer City)

Rest of group matches

D

Australia

Klooftzicht, Cradle

Rust.

Dbn; Nels

C

Algeria

Zimbali Lodge KZN

Pta

Pol; CT

B

Argentina

High performance Centre, Pretoria

EP; SC

Pol;

G

Brazil

Fairway, Randburg

SC; [...]