South to the Voortrekker Monument Travel Video Guide

South to the Voortrekker Monument Travel Itinerary

• Maps and flag of South Africa
• South to the Voortrekker Monument travel photos
• South to the Voortrekker Monument travel forum
• Flights to South to the Voortrekker Monument
• Hotels in South to the Voortrekker Monument
• Hostels in South to the Voortrekker Monument
• Buy the guide book!

Travelling south towards Johannesburg on Preller Road, you can't miss the enormous and head-shakingly ugly UNISA , South Africa's largest university. Over 300,000 students are enrolled here - though most of them are on correspondence courses. Inside, on the fifth floor, a very good art gallery (Tues-Fri 10am-4pm; tel 012 429 6255; free) hosts some of Pretoria's most innovative exhibitions, as well as a permanent collection exhibiting young South African talent of all races. Telephone in advance to make sure the curator is here.

On the outskirts of Pretoria, west of UNISA, the chilling Correctional Services Museum (Mon-Fri 9am-3pm; free), at Pretoria Central Prison, is well worth a visit. Make for Potgieter Street, which runs vertically three blocks west of Church Square, and stay on it while it becomes the R101 to Johannesburg. You'll see the notorious prison, where many famous political prisoners were held (and many executed), on your right. Be prepared to walk past depressed-looking visiting relatives on your way in. Inside the museum you can see artworks made by prisoners, including a life-size statue of an inmate crawling towards an expressionless prison warder, who has his arms outstretched, ready to correct him. There are also exhibits of knives concealed in Bibles and shoes, files in cakes and so forth. Most alarming by far are the group photos of various forbidding-looking prison warders through the ages, which seem a strange sort of propaganda for the prison service.

Continue out on the R101 and follow the signs to view the famous Voortrekker Monument and Museum (daily 8am-5pm; R18). For many years an ominous symbol of Boer domination, the monument is now more generally accepted as one of South Africa's many cultural waypoints, and a visit does allow you a penetrative insight into the Afrikaner mindset. The striking, austere block of granite was built in 1940 to commemorate the Boer victory over the Zulu army at Blood River on December 16, 1838, and its symbolism is crushingly heavy-handed. The monument is enclosed by reliefs of ox wagons, with a large statue of a woman standing outside, shaking her fist at

imaginary oppressors. Inside, a series of moving reliefs depict scenes from the Great Trek. Outside, hidden by some trees, are two pint-size replicas of the huts of Zulu kings Dingane and Cetshwayo. The monument is set within a small nature reserve which has various hiking and mountain-bike trails leading you to look out-points over Pretoria and the surrounding countryside; an alternative way to explore the reserve is on a pony trek - call 012 326 3929 for more details (booking essential).

Your Tips For South to the Voortrekker Monument

• Garden Route South Africa Travel Videos
  South Africa Travel Itinerary
  The Garden Route , a slender stretch of coastal plain between Mossel Bay and Storms River Mouth, bears a legendary status as South Africa's paradise - reflected in local names such as Garden of Eden and Wilderness . - South Africa
  

• Kruger National Park South Africa Travel Videos
  South Africa Travel Itinerary
  KRUGER NATIONAL PARK is arguably the emblem of South African tourism; the place that delivers best what most visitors to Africa want to see - scores of elephants, lions and a cast of thousands of other game roaming the savannah. - South Africa
  

• Gauteng South Africa Travel Videos
  South Africa Travel Itinerary
  Gauteng means "Place of Gold" in Sotho, and no wonder: South Africa's smallest region comprises less than five percent of its landmass, yet contributes around forty percent of the GDP. - South Africa
  

• Cape Town South Africa Travel Videos
  South Africa Travel Itinerary
  CAPE TOWN is southern Africa's most beautiful, most romantic and most visited city. - South Africa