CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 378 km round trip from Vereeniging - roughly 5 h 55 in the saddle. The stops in between: Walter Sisulu Square, Liliesleaf, 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West and Sterkfontein. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,650 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
On the morning of 21 March 1960, several thousand people gathered at the police station in Sharpeville, a Black township beside Vereeniging in what is now Gauteng, to protest against the pass laws that controlled where they could live and work. By early afternoon the police had opened fire, and sixty-nine people lay dead, many shot in the back as they ran. The massacre made headlines around the world, led to the banning of the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress, and pushed the liberation movements toward armed struggle. South Africa now marks the date as Human Rights Day, and the graves of the victims in the nearby Phelindaba cemetery are part of the memorial landscape, together with the police station and a small museum.
Read the complete Sharpeville Graves site B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sharpeville Graves site B is where the day begins. Next is Walter Sisulu Square.
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.
Read the complete Walter Sisulu Square write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Walter Sisulu Square comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is Liliesleaf.
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.
Read the complete Liliesleaf write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 97 km into the recorded legs you reach Liliesleaf. Next is 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West.
Orlando West looks ordinary at first: tidy brick houses, kids in school uniform, taxis hooting at every corner, smoke from braai stands curling over the street. It is in Soweto, about fifteen kilometres southwest of central Johannesburg, and on the morning of 16 June 1976 these were the streets where thousands of schoolchildren marched against being taught in Afrikaans. Police opened fire. Among the first killed was twelve-year-old Hector Pieterson, and the photograph of him being carried by an older student went around the world.
Read the complete 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West, about halfway. Next is Sterkfontein.
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.
Read the complete Sterkfontein write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sterkfontein sits at 185 km, about halfway. Next is back through 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West comes up about 238 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Liliesleaf.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Liliesleaf write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 274 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Liliesleaf. Next is back through Walter Sisulu Square.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Walter Sisulu Square write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Walter Sisulu Square, late in the day. Next is Sharpeville Graves site B.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sharpeville Graves site B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 378 km.
Sharpeville Graves site B → Walter Sisulu Square is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Walter Sisulu Square → Liliesleaf is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Liliesleaf → 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West → Sterkfontein is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sterkfontein → back through 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through 16 June 1976 - The Streets of Orlando West → back through Liliesleaf is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Liliesleaf → back through Walter Sisulu Square is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Walter Sisulu Square → Sharpeville Graves site B is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.