The new kid on the Jozi skyline

The Nizamiye Turish Masjid - or Midrand Mosque -  has made a big impact on the Johannesburg, and in particular Midrand, skyline.  The mosque with its 55 meter high minarets is the brainchild of retired Turkish property developer Ali Katircioglu (known as “Uncle Ali”) and was modelled on the Selimiye Camisi mosque in Edirne, Turkey.

Mushroom Farm Park - greening urban areas

Johannesburg boasts that it's the world's largest man-made urban forest and that's difficult to imagine until one actually visits the city and see how many open spaces, parks and nature reserves there are.  One of these parks is Mushroom Farm Park in Sandton.  I've passed here a couple of times before but visited for the first time on my last visit to the City of Gold. 

Sandton started out in the 1930's as farms and estates and only transform from a farming community to a business district in 1973 when Sandton City was built.  In the 1990's it became part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality at the time when there was quite a boom in development which seemingly hasn't stopped yet.  I haven't found any history on why the area is called Mushroom Farm, but in 2006 during the construction of the Gautrain a shaft was sunk here to access the underground tunnelling operations. 

After the completion of the Gautrain development, rehabilitation of the area started by representatives of the developers.  The terrain has been landscaped, new pathways have been laid, a children's play area created, irrigation and pathway lighting installed, topsoil introduced, the waterways have been cleared and new indigenous flora was plated.  Most of this have now been well established and the park is looking stunning.  On my visit the park was being utilised by both families and business people taking a break away from the hustle and bustle of their offices.  I imagine there will be a couple more people using the park late afternoons after the end of business as well as on weekend, specially those living in apartments in the area.

There is an aerial balloon in the park in which visitors can go up to 120 meter for a lovely view of surrounding Sandton and Johannesburg in the distance.  The Mushroom Farm Park is a prime example of what can be done in urban areas by municipalities in partnership with the private sector when there is a will to do so.

Celebrating Youth Day

16 June is National Youth Day in South Africa. 

It is a day on which the country not only remembers the youth of 1976 and the significant role they played in bringing about the freedom South Africa enjoys today, but also celebrating the freedom won and the youth of today.

On this day in 1976, Soweto high school students took to the streets in a peaceful protest against the mandatory use of Afrikaans as a language of instruction in black secondary schools.  The students planned to meet at Orlando Stadium before marching to the regional offices of the Department of Bantu Education, where they intended raising their grievances with the authorities.

 

On the way to the stadium, they were met by the police, who ordered them to end the march and disperse. A violent confrontation ensued, in which students threw stones and police fired shots. News of the events in Soweto soon spread, igniting uprisings around the country in which more than 550 people died.

One of the first to die on this tragic day in 1976 was 13 year old Hector Pieterson.

Sam Nzima, a photographer for The World newspaper in Johannesburg, was in Soweto, covering the riots. His iconic image (seen as part of the Hector Pieterson Memorial in the picture above) of Pieterson’s body being carried by high school student Mbuyisa Makhubo, with his sister, Antoinette Sithole, running alongside, is a graphic representation of repression under the apartheid regime.

In the early 1990s, the Hector Pieterson Memorial was built on Khumalo Street, not far from where Pieterson was shot. On 16 June 2002, the Hector Pieterson Museum opened on Maseko Street, Orlando West. The museum, dedicated to preserving the memory of the 1976 uprising, is home to a collection of oral testimonies, pictures, audiovisual displays and historical documents relating to the Soweto uprisings. Together with the memorial, it commemorates those who died in the uprisings, and celebrates the students’ role in the struggle for freedom.

The Midrand Mosque

Close to the N1 highway in Midrand between Johannesburg and Pretoria, with views of Sandton and Johannesburg in the distance, stands the magnificent Nizamiye Turish Masjid.  And magnificent it truly is.  The mosque is the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere and was built as an Ottoman structure and modelled on the Selimiye Camisi mosque in Edirne, Turkey (completed in 1574 and today a Unesco World Heritage Site).  The project was the brainchild of Ali Katircioglu (known as “Uncle Ali”), a 74-year old, retired Turkish property developer, who initially wanted to take it to the United State of America. After struggling to find a suitable site he was advised by a friend to rather bring the project to South Africa.

 

I would have loved to have seen the inside of the mosque, but only had time to snap a couple of pictures from outside.  Inside will have to wait for another visit.  The Mosque has a main dome (covered with 48 tons of lead) that is 31m high and 24m wide as well as a further 4 half domes and 21 smaller domes.  Inside the mosque there is authentic Turkish ceramics on the walls and calligraphy on the ceiling.  The dome is patterned with Turkish art and the custom made carpet below it is a reflection of it.  The 4 minarets are 55m and only three metres in diameter but contain two concrete spiral staircases, running one above the other – one up, one down.  The mosque also has 232 stained glass windows. 

 

Up to 6000 people can be accommodated per service in the central men's prayer hall and women's prayer gallery.  On special occasions the mosque is lit up in luminescent green and purple at night which is something I didn't get to see otherwise there would have been a picture of it up here.  Except for the mosque itself, the complex also houses a clinic, a four-storey sama (school) for 850 learners and an arasta (row of shops and restaurant). 

 

The mosque has truly changed the landscape of Midrand and has become a landmark that can't and shouldn't be missed.

Jozi skyline

South Africa has two very recognisable skylines.  The one is Cape Town with Table Mountain and the other is the Johannesburg skyline, easily identified with the Hillbrow Tower in the middle.  The picture was taken from Midrand, north of the city.

The Madiba statue in Nelson Mandela Square

Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton City must be one of the most popular attractions in Johannesburg.  Everybody seems to stop at Sandton City to go shopping and then make sure that they swing by Madiba's statue for a picture.  On a busy day its actually quite difficult to get a pic of the statue without anybody next to it.  I've posted about Nelson Mandela Square before (2008, 2009 and 2010), but on my last visit to Johannesburg I couldn't help but to snap a couple more pictures of it. 

Nelson Mandela's statue in the Square was sculpted by Kobus Hattingh and Jacob Maponyane, weighs 2,5 tons and measures 2,3 metres from elbow to elbow.  The shoulders of the statue are 1.7 metres in width and the shoes are 1 metre in length.

Botanical Garden flower

The remains of a Red Hot Poker next to the pathway 

in the Walter Sesulu Botanical Garden in Johannesburg

Walter Sesulu Botanical Garden

There is always something new to see even if one has been to a place many times.  This is even true of one's own home town, but this isn't a story on my home town.  There is so much I haven't seen around Johannesburg and Gauteng, but I don't always have a lot of free time when I am up there to go exploring.  My last trip to Jozi left me an open morning and I decided to go and visit the Walter Sesulu Botanical Garden.  Although the botanical garden was only founded in 1982, the area has been a popular picnic spot since the late 1800's already.  Back in those days Johannesburgers would go by train as far as the Witpoortjie Station and walk down to the waterfall for a day of leisure.  And it was said waterfall I was actually here to see.   

The natural vegetation of the area is known as the 'Rocky Highveld Grassland' and is a mixture of grassland and savanna, with dense bush in the kloofs and along streams. The botanical garden accommodates over 600 naturally occurring plant species with various walks and trails that visitors can explore.  I especially liked the variety of succulents that was planted around a couple of the pathways.

The main path into the gardens took me all the way to the Witpoortjie Waterfall, named after the nearby railway station.  Not quite sure why they would have done that though.  The grassy area in front of the waterfall is a popular picnic spot with a lot of people going there with the hope to see the resident pair of rare Verreaux’s eagles that nest on the steep, inaccessible cliff next to the waterfall. 

Verreaux’s eagles are spectacular birds of prey, with a wingspan that extends to over 2m.  The pairs are monogamous and stay together, nesting on the same spot year after year.  A couple of years ago the male eagle disappeared, followed shortly after by the female.  It was feared that the carefully monitored 40-year breeding programme would end, but the female miraculously reappeared with a young male as a companion.

First time on the Gautrain

Imagine a bunch of small town children going to Johannesburg and getting to ride on the Gautrain for the first time.  Now imagine a bunch of small town adults having fun and really being in the spirit of things riding on the Gautrain for the first time.  Well, I don't know what you are imagining, but the experience itself wasn't much different than it would be with kids.  Big eyes, lots of fun, comments and laughter   Earlier in the year I attended a tourism expo in Johannesburg and a bunch of us decided to all have our first ride on the Gautrain, Gauteng's state-of-the-art rapid rail network.

The group came from all over with towns like Matatiele in the North Eastern Cape, Mossel Bay on the Garden Route, Malmesbury in the Swartland and the Cape West Coast represented.  Oh yes, and me.  It was like everybody was high on sugar or something the way they were hopping around and joking while waiting for the train to arrive.  And then it came... Actually it didn't, cause this one was going the other way.  But ours arrived shortly after.

The fun continued and the ride was no different so while we were flying along at 160 km per hour the cracking of jokes just went on.  The dude against the window landed up next to the group and held his pose very well while all this was going on.  He should have just gone with the flow...

Arriving in Sandton from Midrand we disembarked the Gautrain at the 45 meter, 6 storey deep Sandton Station.  This we didn't quite realise until we went up three long escalators.  Wow, what a ride and what a marvel.  The return trip was a little more subdued, but still the excitement continued and I am sure everybody are looking forward to their next visit to Johannesburg for another ride on the Gautrain.