This morning we decided to give the Joburg Hop On Hop Off Sightseeing bus a go, which has only been around for a couple of months and has some fairly good reviews too. Since we had already visited the SAB World of Beer and Apartheid Museum, we were happy to give those a skip and concentrate on the other stops. Starting with Constitutional Hill and the Old Fort. After a fairly early start this morning, the folks ran myself and Uns through to Constitutional Hill, where we'd do the tour around there first and then join the Sightseeing Bus route for the rest of the afternoon.

The Constitution Hill precinct, in Hillbrow, is the seat of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, with the first court session held back in February 2004. The hill was formerly the site of a fort which was later used as a prison. The Old Fort Prison complex is known as Number Four. The original prison was built to house white male prisoners in 1892. The Old Fort was built around this prison by Paul Kruger from towards the end of the 1890's to protect the South African Republic from the threat of British invasion. The Old Fort prison was later extended to include "native" cells, called Section 4 and Section 5, and later on a a women's section was added. Both political activists opposed to apartheid and common criminals were held at the prison. Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Joe Slovo amongst others were imprisoned there over time up until 1983 when it was finally closed. In 1995, the Constitutional Court justices began looking for a permanent location for the new Court.

I thoroughly enjoyed the couple of hours around the Old Fort, the Women's Jail and then the brief pop into the fairly new Constitutional Hill. Like with any visit to an fort or jail, always very interesting but rather shocking to witness what those people had to go through back then, even if they were prisoners. After our tour and walk around the site, we hopped on board the bus which then headed towards Joburg via Park Station, Gandhi Square and then to the Carlton Centre where we hopped off.

On getting off the bus, we were met by someone from the bus company who would escort us into the Centre and up to the top. The lift went direct to the 50th floor, and up top was very little in fact, they certainly could do with making a bit more use of the space up there. However, the panoramic views from the top looking out over Johannesburg were awesome. From up there you can see the FNB Stadium, or rather Soccer City, with the massive mining slimes dams behind it, and then Soweto beyond that. To the west is Gandhi Square, the north you can see the impressive skylines of Braamfontein and Hillbrow, and beyond that out towards the lush green northern suburbs. Out east you can see the planes taking off and landing at OR Tambo International Airport. One thing is for sure, there is no more impressive urban viewpoint anywhere in Africa! There's also a cafe up there, called The Top of Africa, but it's very basic and simple - they really could do with a bit of improvement work to fix it all up. But hopefully with this sightseeing bus stopping there they'll start to invest some money in the building, or even just up at the top.

Once back down we stood for ages waiting for the bus, apparently there had been some bumper bashing accident between a taxi and the bus. Not unexpected for a Joburg taxi I guess. But eventually the bus arrived and we continued our drive to weave through the streets downtown and then made our way down south past Turffontein Racecourse, Wemmer Pan and then out to Gold Reef City and the Apartheid Museum. I'd quite like to have gotten off at Gold Reef, but just a bit limited for time, and at least we'd done the Apartheid Museum yesterday.

From the south, the bus headed back into town, past the Mining District Walk and towards Newtown, where we decided to hop off for a late lunch. By this time we were starving, so anywhere would've done at this point. We made our way up from Newtown back towards the Mining District Walk, down Main Street and found ourselves a Mugg and Bean just before Gandhi Square, where we decided to grab a bite to eat.

After a larger than expected lunch, we started to make our way towards the bus when we saw it quite a bit ahead of us, so landed up running in the rain, which had just started, down the road calling out for the driver to wait for us. Luckily a car guard on the side flagged him down and they waited for us at the lights. Pity I never had a bit of loose change on me to tip the guard, he certainly saved us a fairly long wait in the rain.

Once back on the bus, we continued on the route over the Nelson Mandela Bridge, through Braamfontein and then back to Constitutional Hill, where we both started and decided on finish up. The original plan was to get round to Park Station and catch the Gautrain back towards Rhodesfield or Marlborough station and get picked up from there. But with us running later than we thought and time being an issue, I decided on the parent-taxi option, who kindly picked us up from Constitutional Hill.

From town we headed back home via grandpa's place to pick him up then back to number 54 for our Potjie dinner. I had asked (hinted at) the folks a while back as to when last they'd had a Potjie at home, so we decided to get the stove fired up and a Potjie cooking for dinner, which was perfectly timed for when we got home to only needing to be heated up on the braai and then eaten :) I still need to try and get a smallish Potjie for myself over there in London, but will certainly battle with weight trying to get one over here! But as they say, a Boer maak 'n plan!