Johannesburg afternoon · Human Rights
366 km from Johannesburg
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Why this ride
366 km from Johannesburg to Johannesburg, about 6 h 19 of riding. The stops in between: Liliesleaf, Walter Sisulu Square, Sterkfontein and Human Rights. The highest point is about 1,650 m. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Roadbook
- Johannesburg
start
Johannesburg began with a rumour, and the rumour was gold. In 1886, a reef of it was found on the Witwatersrand, and within a decade a tented camp had become a city of mines, offices and shanties, the biggest in southern Africa. It sits on the Highveld at nearly 1,800 metres, which gives it a bright dry climate, cold winter nights and violent summer thunderstorms. Today it is a sprawling metropolis of over two million, with a lot of history to confront.
The Human Rights ride makes the most sense here. Constitution Hill, a former prison complex where Gandhi and Mandela were held, now houses the Constitutional Court, and its courtroom walls are decorated with the stories of ordinary South Africans. The Apartheid Museum, a short way south, is one of the finest museums in Africa, and visitors enter through separate gates marked white and non-white. In Soweto, Vilakazi Street is the only street in the world to have been home to two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, and the Hector Pieterson memorial recalls the youth uprising of 1976.
About a hundred and twenty kilometres south-west, the Vredefort Dome is the eroded remains of the largest verified meteorite impact on Earth, a crater some two billion years old, listed by UNESCO in 2005. Today it appears as a ring of low hills around a granite core, near the town of Parys on the Vaal River. The ride there is easy, on good roads across farmland and grassland.
Fuel and food are plentiful all over the city, including in Alberton and Edenvale, and workshops for most brands are easy to find. Traffic is heavy at rush hour, and minibus taxis can be unpredictable. Security is a real concern in the city, so park the bike in a secure area, stay alert at traffic lights, and ask your hotel for advice on safe routes. The weather is best in autumn and spring, when days are warm and skies are clear.
- Liliesleaf
sight
In the early 1960s, Rivonia was a quiet farming area on the northern edge of Johannesburg, and Liliesleaf was a smallholding with a farmhouse, outbuildings and a thatched cottage. It was bought, through a front, by the South African Communist Party and used as a secret headquarters by the leadership of the liberation movement, including Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress. Nelson Mandela lived here for a time under a false name, posing as a worker called David Motsamayi. On 11 July 1963, police raided the farm and arrested much of the leadership, seizing documents that led to the Rivonia Trial, in which Mandela and others were sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela's speech from the dock, declaring an ideal for which he was prepared to die, became one of the defining moments of the struggle against apartheid.
Liliesleaf is now a museum and heritage site, with exhibits telling the story of the raid, the trial and the wider struggle. In 2024, it became part of the UNESCO World Heritage site Human Rights, Liberation and Reconciliation: Nelson Mandela Legacy Sites. The once-rural farm is now surrounded by the affluent northern suburbs of Johannesburg, with walls, security gates and busy roads, a stark contrast with the secret life it once hid.
The riding in Johannesburg's northern suburbs is urban, with heavy traffic, traffic lights, minibus taxis and potholes. Personal security is a concern, so ride in daylight, keep valuables out of sight and park in secure areas. For better riding, head north-west towards the Cradle of Humankind, a World Heritage site of caves where some of the most important early human fossils have been found, including at Sterkfontein. The roads through the rolling grasslands and hills of the Magaliesberg, towards the Hartbeespoort dam, are popular with local riders, with curves, climbs and views.
The Highveld climate is pleasant for much of the year, with sunny days and cool nights, though summer afternoons bring dramatic thunderstorms with lightning and hail. Winter mornings can be cold.
Fuel, food and every service are easy to find in Randburg, Sandton and the surrounding suburbs. Try boerewors, a spiced sausage grilled on the braai, or a plate of pap and chakalaka, a maize porridge with spicy relish, at a local restaurant.
- Walter Sisulu Square
sight
On 26 June 1955, some three thousand delegates gathered on a dusty open field in Kliptown, one of the oldest settlements of what became Soweto, for the Congress of the People. Police surrounded the meeting on its second day, but not before the crowd had adopted the Freedom Charter, the document that opens with the words that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white. Its ideas went on to shape the country's post-apartheid constitution. The field is now Walter Sisulu Square, named after the anti-apartheid leader and mentor of Nelson Mandela, and the charter's clauses are carved into stone around a monument at its centre.
The square is a big, open civic space, with a conical brick tower, markets and a hotel, and it can feel a little empty on a quiet weekday. Its value lies in what happened here and in what surrounds it. Kliptown itself remains poor, with informal housing close by, and the contrast between monument and neighbourhood is part of the lesson.
A short ride away, in Orlando West, Vilakazi Street is the only street in the world where two Nobel Peace Prize winners lived, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Mandela's old house is a museum. Nearby, the Hector Pieterson Memorial marks the student uprising of 16 June 1976, when police opened fire on schoolchildren protesting against being taught in Afrikaans. It is a powerful, sobering place.
Riding in Johannesburg is about traffic and awareness rather than scenery. Roads are wide and fast, but minibus taxis stop and swerve without warning, potholes appear suddenly, and traffic lights, known locally as robots, are often out of action during power cuts. The city sits high on the Highveld at around seventeen hundred metres, and summer afternoons bring violent thunderstorms with hail, while winter days are dry, sunny and cold in the mornings. Personal security is a real concern: ride in daylight, keep your bike in sight or in guarded parking, and consider visiting Soweto with a local guide, which also makes the experience much richer.
Fuel is everywhere in Soweto and Johannesburg, with attendants filling the tank for you. For lunch try a kota, a quarter-loaf of bread stuffed with chips, sauce and meat, or grilled meat at a shisa nyama, eaten outside with friends and loud music.
- Sterkfontein
sight
Some of the most important clues to human evolution have come out of a set of limestone caves in the grassland north-west of Johannesburg. The Sterkfontein caves, in the area known as the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, have yielded hundreds of hominin fossils, including Mrs Ples, a skull of Australopithecus africanus about two million years old, found in 1947, and Little Foot, an almost complete skeleton of an Australopithecus, painstakingly extracted from the rock over two decades.
The caves were mined for lime in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the miners blasted out fossils with the rock. Scientists began systematic work here in the 1930s, and excavations continue today. Guided tours take visitors into the caves, through chambers and passages, and explain what was found where. Maropeng, a visitor centre nearby, presents the story of human evolution in an engaging way, with exhibitions and a boat ride through the elements.
The riding around the Cradle of Humankind is pleasant, with roads winding through the rolling grassland of the Highveld, dotted with farms, game reserves and small towns. The Magaliesberg mountains, to the north, offer more winding roads and fine views. Traffic near Johannesburg can be heavy, and driving is on the left. Summer, from October to March, brings afternoon thunderstorms, sometimes violent, with hail, and the winter is dry and sunny, with cold nights. Be aware of security: keep your bike and belongings secure, and avoid riding at night in unfamiliar areas.
Muldersdrift and Krugersdorp, nearby, have fuel, shops and restaurants, and Johannesburg has all services. The area has many lodges, restaurants and farm stalls, popular with weekend visitors from the city. South African food includes braai, barbecue, boerewors, a spiced sausage, and biltong, dried meat, perfect for a ride. Visiting the caves, and seeing the place where our ancestors' bones lay for millions of years, is a humbling experience.
- Human Rights
turn
Pretoria's Union Buildings stand on Meintjieskop, a low ridge looking over the city, and from the terraced gardens you can see the whole sweep of the South African capital spread out below. The sandstone buildings, with two wings joined by a curved colonnade, were designed by the English architect Herbert Baker and finished in 1913, to house the government of the newly formed Union of South Africa. For decades they were the seat of white minority rule. On 10 May 1994 they became the setting for the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as the first democratically elected president, and with that the meaning of the place changed.
That is why the point carries the label Human Rights. The Union Buildings are part of a UNESCO listing from 2024 on the legacy of Nelson Mandela and the liberation struggle, which links places in South Africa associated with the fight against apartheid and the building of a new constitutional order. A large bronze statue of Mandela, with open arms, stands in the gardens, and the view across the city from the terraces is a popular place for photographs, and for ceremonies.
Pretoria is also known as the Jacaranda City. In October and November the streets are covered in the purple blossom of thousands of trees, planted over a century ago, and the petals carpet the roads and parked cars. In the afternoon, summer thunderstorms often roll in with heavy rain and hail, so it pays to start early. Winters are dry and sunny, with chilly mornings, and the best weather for a long ride is from April to September.
The city is a good base. The N1 and N4 highways make for fast progress, and the surrounding countryside has rewarding rides: the Magaliesberg range to the west, the quiet back roads of the Cradle of Humankind toward Sterkfontein, where fossils of early human ancestors have been found, including the famous skull known as Mrs Ples, found in 1947. Constitution Hill, in Johannesburg, the old prison and now home of the Constitutional Court, is the other stop.
Fuel is easy in a city of this size, with stations on every main road. Like any large South African city, it asks for sensible habits: park in guarded places, keep valuables out of sight, and ask local riders about the areas to avoid. Then enjoy the slower side of Pretoria, with its cafes, its Dutch-Cape architecture and its very good steaks.
- back through Sterkfontein
stop
back through Sterkfontein comes up 229 km in.
- back through Walter Sisulu Square stop
- back through Liliesleaf
stop
back through Liliesleaf, late in the day.
- Johannesburg
finish
The route ends here after 366 km.