Brand South Africa Blog

A shot of the astonishing Maponya Mall in Soweto, courtesy of Google Earth. Not hard to find from space. Ground level video of the opening in 2007 here.  Ray Lewis of the Bloggers’  Tour took this video.  Note the motorcyclists in the parking lot. Representative of a trend among upwardly mobile Sowetans.  And here’s a good pic of the main entrance hall with Xmas tree, from Deshanta Naidoo’s  Flickr photostream.

An hour’s drive up the west coast from Cape Town, not far from Darling, is the !Khwa ttu San Culture and Education Centre. The San are among the most ancient peoples in the world. As David Sasaki reports in an excellent blog post, the centre is well worth a visit.  After a great lunch — the restaurant is first rate — we learnt about the language of the San and its distinctive clicks.

Dr Tiplady at Hart RAO with the SKA propotype dish

Dr. Adrian Tiplady, astronomer, engineer and accomplished jazz musician, is a key member of the team working to have the most ambitious radio telescope in history — the Square Kilometre Array — built in South Africa and other African countries. Earlier this month he showed us round the Hart Radio Astronomy Observatory in the Magaliesberg, where a prototype (pictured) for one of the 4500 receiver dishes expected to comprise SKA is currently collecting data on pulsars. Click below to hear him describe the project, its precursor, Meerkat, already under construction in the Karoo, what SKA means for South Africa and why he believes we will win the right to host it. In an extraordinary swords-to-ploughshares story, South Africa , he says, has gone from “a small, surprise upstart to a dominant player in the whole global consortium” working on SKA.

 

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Our esteemed and cherished colleague, now fellow blogger, Nadine K. had a spot of bother exiting the gondola of one of Bill Harrop’s excellent balloons after a flight over the Magaliesberg. Honest, we asked Nadine’s permission to post this video and trouper that she is, she agreed: anything to bring traffic to the site.

Dominic Stratford, a rising young star in paleoanthropology doing doctoral work at the University of Witwatersrand showed us round the caves at Sterkfontein — including his own excavations — then gave us a crash course on the rise of man at the site’s laboratory. Part one of his talk can be seen below. Follow the links to parts two and three.

The brilliant Vincent Carruthers traces the history of the Magaliesberg from the dawn of time in this talk at Plumari Game Lodge.

 

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Matthew Buckland took the picture

At Alexander Bay, we also met Toens Mostert, a wonderful character with features as weathered as the Richtersveld itself. He was working as a guide for John De Waal’s Richtersveld Tours. He was a fount of knowledge about local lore and places names. Here he speaks about his life and and ancestry in and out of the region.

 

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At Anglogold Ashanti’s Tau Tona mine, some 3.4 kilometres underground, we met a newly minted geologist. Over the din of men and machines, she talked to us about her work.

Lesego Mlambo comes from the Braam Fischer section of Soweto and has spent the past year with the Joshua Youth Development Programme run by Metro Evangelical Services, working with the poor in the Johannesburg inner city. As part of his preparation for the Joshua programme, he was sent on an Outward Bound course, which is how we came to meet him in Mountain Sanctuary Park in the Magaliesberg. We went for a hike with him and other young Joshua’s who had been on Outward Bound. Inspired by David Sasaki, we put a camera in his hands. Here’s the result:

Nadine Khan of Brand South Africa came with us on the bloggers’ tour. Here’s what it has meant to her:

I woke up today a privileged South African.  I have spent the last six days in the presence of some of the top US and local bloggers.  

Together we have been exploring this beautiful country in almost every possible way imaginable.  We have driven there by car, bus and 4 x 4. We have flown there by 707 Boeing, charter and helicopter and we even braved the stormy seas by ship.   

All in an attempt to showcase the South African firsts, which are inventions or technology that South Africa is the first to use in the world. Our destinations have been broad and vast and the hours spend on the road has been long and ardours.  We have seen it all.  From launching satellites in space to bushmen rock paintings.  From a helicopter scenic flight over the Cape Peninsula to going down the worlds deepest mine, we have done it. Read the rest of this entry »

Another great ad from Nando’s. Some may consider it in questionable taste. Hat tip notaniche.com

More from the banks of the Orange River. This is a truly wonderful place. But windy that day, which interfered with the audio. Our host was Johan De Waal of Richtersveld Tours. Pictures of where he took us, and who we met, follow.

Herman Oelsner, CEO of the Darling Wind Farm Pty Ltd, talks to the the bloggers’ tour about his renewable energy projects. Click below to hear him. He is introduced by Graeme Addison. Matthew Buckland took the picture.

 

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Near Alexander Bay, on the banks of the Orange River, we met Cecilia. She sang us a hymn.

 

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Kobus Meiring, CEO of Optimal Energy, briefs the bloggers on South Africa’s electric car. Kobus previously headed the project to build SALT, the Southern African Large Telescope, the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere and brought it in on time and under budget.  Click below to listen in.

 

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Where to go when you get to ! Khwa ttu, the San Culture and Education Centre near Darling. Beautiful and fascinating place, incidentally, on which more posts coming. 

Miichael Spicer talks about the economy to blogger David Sasaki and his cellphone.