Wonderboom Nature Reserve, Gauteng

The Wonderboom Nature Reserve is situated in the northern part of the city and straddles the Magaliesberg Mountains. This 200 ha reserve is famous for its magnificent specimen of Ficus salicifolia, a wild fig called the "Wonderboom".

The fig tree is older than 1 000 years, and legend has it that it grew this big because the chief of an indigenous tribe lies buried beneath its roots. It is recorded that the tree was once big enough to shade 1 000 people at a time, or 22 ox wagons with 20 oxen in front of each! Today it is much smaller – probably because of the devastating fire in 1870 started by a hunting party, or because of a parasitic infestation, which put it in quarantine for 20 years. Over the years the branches have grown longer, hanging lower and lower until they touched the ground, rooted and produced a circle of daughter trees. There are now three circles of daughter trees surrounding the original tree.

Come and see this amazing tree, and take the interpretation trail from our new boardwalk in and around the tree.

Wonderboom Nature Reserve has a large number of dassies (rock hyrax) living in caves overlooking the Apies River. They provide a food source for a breeding pair of black eagles that nest on a rocky ledge nearby and that can often be seen circling above the reserve.

At the top of the Wonderboom Hill are the ruins of the Wonderboom Fort, one of four forts built by the former Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek at the end of the 19th century to defend Pretoria against the British forces. It was never used. It was blown up, probably on the instruction of Prime Minister Jan Smuts, in the early days of the Second World War, lest it be used by anti-government dissidents as a springboard for an attack on the state. At the foot of the hill near the Wonderboom is an important Iron Age site and nearby is one of the best Stone Age sites in the area.

The reserve has picnic facilities.

Jenny Love

South African Beauty: Model Rizelle Applegreen

Pretoria Botanical Garden

The Pretoria National Botanical Garden, founded in 1946, is home to the Head Office of SANBI (South African National Botanical Institute). This Pretoria Garden successfully bridges the divide between scientific research and the recreational environment.

The Pretoria Botanical Garden is open daily, 365 days a year, from 08:00 to 18:00. (No entry allowed after 17:00). A 50 m high quartzite outcrop divides the Garden in two sections. Its frosty south-facing section and the north-facing, warmer section present two different worlds to the visitor and botanist. Paved nature trails give access to the fascinating natural vegetation on the ridge.

Fifty hectares of the total area are devoted to developed garden, using almost exclusively South African plants. All the flowering plant species to be seen including 50% of the country's tree species, make this Garden a botanical tapestry, offering the visitor a glimpse of different biomes such as Savanna, forest, fynbos and some plants of other biomes.

The Pretoria Botanical Garden is home to more than 198 bird species and a number of reptiles and small mammals such as the common duiker. Special features are the treed wisteria avenue and special collections of medicinal plants, cycads, aloes, tree species, succulents and natural ridge vegetation.

The green lawns and spreading shade trees in summer and the massed aloe collections that blaze into flower during winter, are just some of the seasonal features that draw visitors to this spectacular Garden.

Various capital development projects have been completed since 2002, including a new Visitor Centre and a gift/bookshop and the Environmental Education Centre, the new South African National Biodiversity Institute building was built adjacent to the existing herbarium building and was inaugurated on 2 December 2004.

Opened in May 2005, the Mokha Restaurant overlooks the wetland.

Engela

http://freelancer-daniel.blogspot.com/