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Overlanding Through Africa

May - September 2023
This is the big one - the trip we have been planning since before the pandemic! We will be overlanding from South Africa 🇿🇦 to Kenya 🇰🇪 passing through 9 other countries and taking four months. Read more
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  • 397footprints
  • 12countries
  • 125days
  • 5.3kphotos
  • 172videos
  • 21.9kmiles
  • 11.2kmiles
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  • Overlanding Through Africa
    Day 3

    Orlando Towers

    May 9, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    As part of our tour of Soweto, we stopped at the famous landmark, Orlando Towers.

    Orlando Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station. The power station was built at the end of the Second World War and served Johannesburg for over 50 years.

    Today, the cooling towers have been painted, one functioning as an advertising billboard and the other displaying the largest mural painting in South Africa. The towers are also used for bungee and base jumping from a platform between the top of the two towers as well as a bungee swing into one of the towers - if you're crazy enough!! 😀    Read more

  • Overlanding Through Africa
    Day 3

    Hector Pieterson Museum

    May 9, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    Our next stop was at the Hector Pieterson Museum and Memorial. We had an expert guide who told us the familiar story of how Hector, aged 12, was shot and killed at the age of twelve during the Soweto uprising, when the police opened fire on black students protesting the enforcement of teaching in Afrikaans.  A news photograph by Sam Nzima of the mortally wounded Hector being carried by another Soweto resident while his sister ran next to them was published around the world. The anniversary of his death is designated as Youth Day in South Africa.

    Our guide pointed out Hector's sister, who also works as a tour guide, with a group of American tourists. How gruelling must it be for her to relive that terrible incident every day?!    Read more

  • Overlanding Through Africa
    Day 3

    Mandela House

    May 9, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    From the museum, we drove down Vilakazi Street to visit the former home of Nelson Mandela. He lived here from 1946 to 1962. It is a typical four-room 'matchbox' house.

    Mandela donated the house to the Soweto Heritage Trust in 1997 to be used as a museum. The single-story red-brick house has been extensively restored, but it still has bullet holes in the walls, and the facade has scorch marks from police attacks with Molotov cocktails. Inside, there are some original furnishings and memorabilia, including photographs, citations given to Nelson Mandela, and the world championship belt given to Mandela by Sugar Ray Leonard.

    It was fascinating, and really quite moving, to be inside Nelson Mandela's home. This is the place he came to when he was released from prison in 1990, despite suggestions from government officials that he should find a safer home. At a rally welcoming him home to Soweto, his opening words were, "I have come home at last." However, after 11 days back at the house, he moved out again.

    He later wrote in his autobiography:

    'That night I returned with Winnie to No. 8115 in Orlando West. It was only then that I knew in my heart I had left prison. For me, no. 8115 was the centre point of my world, the place marked with an X in my mental geography.'

    I feel privileged to have been in the rooms he inhabited.    Read more

  • Overlanding Through Africa
    Day 3

    Constitution Hill - Number Four Prison

    May 9, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    From Soweto, we used the City Sightseeing bus again to visit Constitution Hill, a living museum that tells the story of South Africa’s journey to democracy. The site is a former prison and military fort that bears testament to South Africa’s turbulent past and, today, is home to the country’s Constitutional Court, which endorses the rights of all citizens.

    We had a really interesting guided tour.

    The tour started in 'Number Four', the prison for blacks, which, unbelievably, given the state of it, was in use until as recently as 1983! Conditions for the inmates were grim. Men were incarcerated in communal cells designed for 30 prisoners, but which regularly housed as many as 60. They only had thin sleeping mats and blankets, and space was so limited that prisoners had to sleep head to toe. There was just one toilet in the corner of each of these cells.

    The prisoners' diet depended on their race. Black inmates had to survive on very little. There were no chairs or tables, so the men had to eat their meals squatting on the floor in an open area next to communal toilets, which regularly got blocked and overflowed. Disease was rife.

    Cruelty and humiliation were the standard behaviour of prison warders. The few black warders were treated almost as badly as the inmates by their white colleagues.

    No distinction was made in terms of the 'crime' a man had committed. A black man arrested for not carrying his pass could be jailed without trial and accommodated in a cell with murderers and rapists.

    There were a large number of isolation cells to punish inmates who were deemed to have broken the rules. Political prisoners were housed in these as a matter of course. These airless, dark, tiny cells were supposed to be used for a maximum of 30 days at a time, but some men were held in them for over a year.

    Unbelievably, despite the grim conditions, prisoners found ways to entertain and occupy themselves. Singing was always popular, as was 'blanket sculpture', creating artwork by folding and shaping blankets. There is an exhibition today to show examples.

    Number Four was once home to prisoners such as Mahatma Gandhi (jailed several times between 1908 and 1913 for leading the Passive Resistance Movement against pass laws for Asians), Joe Slovo, Robert Sobukwe, and the students of the 1976 Soweto uprising.    Read more

  • Overlanding Through Africa
    Day 3

    The Constitutional Court

    May 9, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    Our tour of Constitution Hill continued with a visit to the Constitutional Court of South Africa 🇿🇦 which is housed in a purpose-built building next door to Number Four. During its construction, the notorious holding prison where accused men were held while awaiting trial was demolished. Part of it was kept and incorporated into the state-of-the-art court facility. Red bricks from the demolished prison were used in the new building. They can be seen clearly in the courtroom. The building is very cleverly designed.

    Inside the main room, a row of horizontal windows has been set up behind the seats of the judges. While the windows are at head height on the inside, they are on ground level on the outside. Those sitting in the court consequently have a view of the feet of passersby moving along, above the heads of the judges, to remind them that in a constitutional democracy the role of judges is to act in the interests of the people of the nation, rather than in their own self-interest.

    There are 11 judges who rule on constitutional matters. They are appointed by the Prime Minister for a 12 year term. When they reach their 70th birthday, they must retire. There is a cow hide displayed in front of each of their chairs, an acknowledgement of the traditional ways of justice as practised in rural villages. Similarly, the emblem of the court shows people discussing matters under a tree, as would have happened in rural communities. There is a South African flag hanging behind the judges' chairs, which was handmade by a group of local ladies. It is intricately embroidered and beaded and is a real work of art.

    The court building is open to the public who want to attend hearings. The public seating is very close to the action, unlike court buildings elsewhere in the world.

    The doors to the court have the 27 rights of the Bill of Rights carved into them, written in all 12 official languages of South Africa. There were 11 official languages, but sign language was added recently, making 12 in all.

    Amongst other notable rulings in this court, the death penalty was abolished in 1995, and same sex marriage was recognised in 2006.

    In the court atrium, there is an impressive art gallery which houses a collection of more than 200 contemporary artworks.

    We were very impressed with the court building. There are lessons for all of us to learn here 😀.    Read more

  • Overlanding Through Africa
    Day 3

    Some photos of the artwork

    May 9, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    Here are some photos 📸 of the striking artwork on display in the atrium of the Constitutional Court building. They include a four-panel work by Sipho Ndlovo called 'Images of South African History'.

  • Overlanding Through Africa
    Day 3

    Women's Prison, Constitution Hill

    May 9, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    From the Constitutional Court, we walked up to the Women's Jail, built in 1909 in the Victorian style.

    On the way, we passed the Flame of Democracy and a statue of a child representing hope.

    The prison had separate sections for whites and other races. The white prisoners were given better treatment compared to other races who were crowded in their cells with inadequate sanitary conditions.

    Some of the notable prisoners who were once imprisoned here include Winnie Mandela and Albertina Sisulu who were both political activists and were arrested on account of their activities with the African National Congress.

    In 1932, Daisy de Melker, who poisoned her two husbands and her son, was imprisoned here. She was later convicted for murder and executed by hanging.

    In 1983, the jail closed, and the building was later converted to a women's centre.    Read more

  • Overlanding Through Africa
    Day 3

    The Old Fort on Constitution Hill

    May 9, 2023 in South Africa

    After the women's jail, we went to visit the Old Fort.

    The original prison on Constitution Hill was built to house white male prisoners in 1892. The Old Fort was built around this prison by Paul Kruger from 1896 to 1899 to protect the South African Republic from the threat of British invasion. Later, when the British won the Anglo-Boer war, Boer military leaders were imprisoned here by the British.

    Under the apartheid government, only whites were held in the Old Fort prison buildings, except for Nelson Mandela. He was kept there after the government received a tip-off regarding an escape attempt. Mandela was given a bed in the hospital section as an awaiting-trial prisoner in 1962 prior to the Rivonia Trial.

    It was fascinating to explore the fort and to see another place associated with Nelson Mandela.    Read more

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