ah da's adventures: Experiencing the culture and history in Jozi: The Apartheid museum & Gold mine visit

As my time in Joburg is nearing its mid-point, I've decided to take advantage of this sunday in town to check off a few things on my list of things to do: the Apartheid Museum and the Gold Reef City.

The two attractions are actually located in the same spot, in the Crown Mine area just south of the city. The Apartheid Museum as the name suggests is the museum that documents the history of South Africa during and since the apartheid era. Gold Reef City is an amusement park, but i wasn't interested in it so much for its rides, but because of its tour of the gold mine that is underneath the site!

So bright and early on sunday morning (after a healthy breakfast at home), I set off and drove to the Apartheid Museum. I have had people recommend that I need to give myself some time in the museum as there were a lot to see and a lot to read. I figured I would start with that, and if I run out of time, then I'll have to find another time to come back for the gold mine.

For those that are not familiar, Apartheid was a system of racial segregation that took place in South Africa between 1948 to 1994. During the period, the "non-white" inhabitants of South Africa had their rights taken away from them and the "whites" were deemed as the superior race. There were forceful removals, and rights denial and all kind of mistreatment. I was initially a bit hesitant to add this to my list (just like how I skipped the Holocaust museum and concentration camps when I was in Germany), but it is such a big part of South Africa's history, I felt that I had to visit to learn more about this country.

When I arrived at the museum, I was surprised that the large parking lot was fairly empty with only a few tour buses there. I bought my ticket and entered the museum through a really cool entrance where they stimulated the racial segregation. Tickets were randomly assigned a race, and you have to go through the respective entrance. I got a "non-white" ticket, but I actually think that the "white" side was closed for the day. There is an area with a lot of IDs on display, then it opens up to an open air area where there are people on mirrors. It was a little creepy given that I was the only one at this part of the exhibit at the time, but I survived and managed to take pictures.

The Apartheid Museum, and its empty-ish parking lot

these were the 7 elements that were on the pillars

The entrance to simulate what it would've been like with racial segregation

I was "randomly assigned" as non-white

this was cool!

Creepy alleyway

Can you find me?

That pathway then leads you to the lower level where the exhibition area starts. Currently, the temporary exhibit is on Nelson Mandela, and I thought it'd be good to start with that. The Nelson Mandela exhibit was very informative. The displays and the photos were also quite good. I learned a lot about Nelson Mandela as a person and his life. The only complaint I have for that exhibit is that it's not very clear where you should start and which way you should continue in order to understand the story. It took me awhile to figure out that they divided the display by his admirable qualities. However, it was impossible to figure out which board leads to which board and whether you were supposed to read from left to right or right to left. I was a bit confused but managed to read everything. I would've preferred a bit more guidance. Also I got scolded when a guard saw that I was taking pictures, but I did not recall any signs that said that photography was prohibited. I mean it would've been nice if there was a warning. So here are some pictures before I got scolded.

The permanent exhibit briefly explores the beginning of Johannesburg (from the gold rush) and then takes us through the ages of Apartheid to the end of the Apartheid era. To see the entire museum it can take anywhere between 1 hour to 3 hours. On average around 2 if you skim all the display and actually read it. When I got to the main exhibit, there were more people in the museum. In fact it got to a point where there were too many tour groups. One of the groups was a French group, and I couldn't help but try to listen to what the guide was saying to test my comprehension. Then there was a Chinese group (mandarin) and I couldn't help it but tuned into what they were saying. Meanwhile, i was trying to read in English. To be honest, it was getting quite confusing.... I had to walk a bit faster to avoid being stuck between the two groups.

Apartheid museum brochure that gives you options on what to see to control the amount of time you spent in it

I ended up finishing the museum in about 2.5 hours, and then decided there was still time for the gold mine visit! So I drove over (had to ask some car to move because he was parked right behind mine, I did not understand why they would do that when the parking lot is empty and huge! why block another car???) and went to get my ticket. It was quite fitting that the Apartheid museum and the Gold Reef city is now situated in the crown mine area. At least more so for Gold Reef city, the crown mine is how the city of Johannesburg started: when there was a rush for gold (like the one in Yukon in Canada) which brought all kinds of ppl to Joburg for work.

There are so many of these every where (at the montecasino too!)..

I bought a ticket for the Heritage tour which includes park entry costs (R150, ~ $25 CAD) as well as a guided tour underground into the mines (R80, ~$13 CAD). The Heritage tour runs every hour on the hour between 9h00 to 15h00 and lasts for approximately 1.5 hours (at least that's what they advertise, it was more like 1 hour).

It begins with a 10 mins movie that explained Joburg's origin and the gold rush that brought people into the city. It also attempted to explain the origin of the name of the city (I say attempt because they give you a lot of options and later concludes that it was "likely named after one of the Johans, or Johannes" from that time period) I could've guessed that. What I didn't know is that the name of the province - Gauteng - means the "Place of Gold" in Sesotho (one of the tribal language) - again it's pronounced "How - ding".

After the the 10 mins short film, the guide warns of all the conditions that you cannot have in order to go on this "ride". These are very typical warnings (like for a roller coaster): no high blood pressure, no low blood pressure, no asthma, no pregnant woman, no heart conditions, etc. Now you might ask, why? It's not even a ride? Well apparently it can be. The tour is supposed to take place at level 5 underground which is approximately 225m below ground. We are supposed to take a lift (elevator) down which is a 2 minute ride if all is well. However, if the power goes out, then we have to climb the stairs in order to exit the mine. There is a total of roughly 1440 steps and the journey will take approximately 2 hours. (At this point, 4 of the seniors in our group got up and walked away.. and then we never saw them again!)

The blue part is the first how deep the mine was when it was first built - half way on that is where we will be going to

Then an extension was made to below sea level (in pink)

the third extension in yellow, deep into the earth

hard hats

getting ready!

they only gave these lights to the guys... hmph

Anyways, and off we go to the lift and down into the earth we go. The elevator was pitch black except for the torches/flashlight that part of our group had. You can hear the water dripping on the side of the shaft, and there is a significant change in temperature as you descend (it gets cooler!). By the time the lift stop, we had lights again (it's the station). The inside of the tunnels are painted white for illumination purposes. It was quite cool. We were told that 1 tonne of ore will produce only about 4g of gold (dry weight). The yield is quite low and that's probably why gold is so pricey.

we used the bottom level of a 2 storey lift

inside the lift, it was pitch black except for the occassional light outside

arrived! at level 5 deep in the mine (225m)

walls painted white for illumination

random overhead hazards

water pump area

dynamite box with fake dynamite in it

first aid station and our guide - soweto

a mix of afrikaans, english and zulu (?)

first aid!

when moving ore was a manual thing to do - 1 tonne of ore

and 1 tonne of ore yields only about 4 g of dry weight gold

how they keep track of how many ore buckets have gone

low ceilings

structural support

he was explaining that they prefer the wooden support as supposed to the metal one, because the wood will make a noise that is like a warning while the metals will not

this guy was doing a hammer demonstration

once the electric engine was introduced, it was easier to transfer ores

a description of the mine, showing systems of lifts and how you can get to the very bottom. Apparently most of the lower levels are flooded since no electric pumping were used once the mine went outof operation. Eventually the water will seep up and maybe flood Johannesburg according to our guide

Showing the stairs that we will have to take in case of a power outage... a 2 hr hike

The black spots are gold (they put this in for demonstration purposes) so I touched gold!

The stairs that we would have to take.. it's more like a climb... i m so glad there was no power outages (considering how common they are - power would kick out, traffic lights will be out and turns the intersection into a 4 way stop...)

After we emerged from the gold mine, we were then taken to a gold pour demonstration. It was a very short demonstration but cool to watch nonetheless. The demonstration was done with copper and not real gold (as mentioned by numerous signs in the area). It was very cool that they were attempting to stimulate the pour of a gold bar.

but with copper!

the oven was very hot where they took this out from

then they poured!

and the "gold" solidified and was cooled off

and you add some imagination in the steps in between, and it becomes a gold bar! (due to time constraint)

Then our tour ended. Since it was already around 3:30pm and I wouldn't have time to go visit anything else (with places closing at 4pm or 5pm), I figured I'll spend sometime to explore the park. Being not really dressed for the occassion and not really wanting to test the safety of the rides here and also the locker security measures, I opted for rides that were less thrilling. I went to the area where there was a 4d theatre and watched a movie called "Turtle vision"in 4D. Apparently that is the only 4D theatre in joburg, and it also has the motion seats. It was a very cute movie about human and their influence in the habitat of wildlife in the ocean. It was very cute.

like Swings of the century at Canada's wonderland

Like the cliffhanger

like nightmares

like top gun (well with dangling legs)

like the water ride (dam this is the only one i dont' remember the name of its equivalent ride at wonderland)

I was sooo tempted to try to win something!

and there were hello kitties

There were rides that quite resembles the one at Canada's wonderland (and probably other theme parks in the world - but it's a lot more emptier here), You have your drop towers (like drop zones), the ride where your feet dangles (like top gun), your water rides (sit in a circle on a tube and see who gets soaked) and other standard rides. What I thought was very cool about this theme park was that peacocks roam free and they were EVERYWHERE. Like you could be eating your lunch in a patio, and a peacock would come really close to you. There are also hens and roosters that were roaming free. Everyone else seems to be used to it, but I found it quite amusing and took tons of pictures. I was quite lucky to see a male peacock open its feathers right before I leave. Definitely a highlight to my already amazing day =)