T
continued to crop the beautifully maintained
grass. Still on the R512 this old friend guided us
towards Hartbeespoort Dam and the bridge
which spans across the water. It's a wide open
road, with beautiful views of the Magaliesburg
mountains and believe me it is just begging for
you to open up. The Vulture Rehabilitation
Centre is based here and Cape Vultures can often
be seen circling overhead. Hartbeespoort Dam is
surrounded by the beautiful Magaliesberg
Mountains which has an ancient geological
history and evidence of humans dating back over
2 million years. The area also saw some heavy
fighting during the Anglo-Boer War. Parking our
bikes with a view both of the dam and the
Magaliesburg mountains we could just make out
the Hartbeespoort Aerial Cableway extending
We arrived at a T-Junction, where we took a left to the top of the mountains. The cableway was
and continued on the R512 towards revamped in 2010 and now sports 14 six-seater
Broederstroom. An old haunt of ours, we know hi-tech cable cars.
precisely where the trucks have created bumps
in the road and exactly where it smooths out.
Amused by the sight of a few Blesbok on a golf
course we stopped to take photographs. The
white flash on their face stood out against their
dark bodies as they stared at us in boredom and
he traffic towards Hartbeespoort Dam
was steady but pleasant. The road surface on the
long sweeping curves was heavenly. We
stopped to admire a balloon in this very active
ballooning area. The gentle hills are peppered
with lush trees, grass which was a little too
yellow for summer reminded us that we have
had rain, but not enough. Then there was the
combination of forest area, shrub and grassland
surrounding the Crocodile River. Popular for
white water rafting, the Crocodile River's source
is the Witwatersrand mountain range,
originating in Johannesburg in the area of South
Africa's first great gold discovery. Interestingly,
low impact earthquakes occur on the Crocodile
River every 50 or so years.