Ugly traces of industrialisation are still visible, when I first spot the brown signboards announcing that one has crossed over into the Cradle of Humankind.
Small industrial operations and battery chicken farms are hidden behind shiny corrugated iron structures. It is only the putrid aroma of animal faeces and toxic gases that give the game away. It seems an unlikely destination to uncover our origins. The environment suggests that the roots of our ancient selves are untraceable. My journey isn't necessarily compelled by an interest in the origins of humankind but by a yearning for a sojourn that offers some release from the heavy grip of modern civilisation.
As the insatiable impulse to break away from the demands of life in Joburg has intensified, so have the tentacles of this burgeoning conurbation spread, ensuring that as each year passes it takes longer and longer to leave the city.
Endless rows of uniform complexes and small shops now dot areas that once functioned as the hazy divide between the city and the country. The Ferriera's hardware store, which has been an institution to DIY enthusiasts in the far northern reaches for at least two decades, once stood alone in the rough veld of Honeydew. Thus I always viewed the establishment as marking the boundary between the city and the countryside. Today it lies in the centre of a busy high street near shopping centres and supermarkets, forcing one to drive much further to leave the trappings of modern existence behind.
Nevertheless, as one edges deeper into the Cradle of Humankind one's attention is diverted by the natural forms that grow more and more prominent. The open blue skies, across which white amorphous entities silently glide. The long yellow grasses that sway to and fro like obedient slaves to the wind. The humble koppie that asserts its presence at sunset when it morphs into a dark and immovable silhouette, contrasting with the peach-coloured hues of a sky in flux.
I know these forms well. I have been absorbing them since the early days of Ferriera's, when we would venture past the shop, following dirt roads to out of the way country restaurants with thatched roofs and cool, tiled interiors. We would come home covered in dust but I revelled in this earthy residue that suggested we were of the landscape rather than adjunct figures.
Back then the area wasn't known as the Cradle of Humankind; that's its new designation or incarnation. It's an expedient label designed to draw attention to what was once thought of as an unremarkable place.
Branding rural suburbs has become a national phenomenon. The sleepy rural suburbs of KwaZulu Natal are now called the Midlands Meander. The idea is that these new bold titles will give these characterless areas a personality, a higher purpose. Of course, the Sterkfontein Caves, the site of significant archaeological diggings that have substantiated that "man began in Africa" (women hail from Venus), had a lot to do with the area's label, underpinning its authenticity.
One wouldn't think one would have to package the countryside for urbanites but it seems city dwellers are more likely to visit an area if it sold as a defined destination.
The establishment in 2005 of the Maropeng Visitor Centre, an interactive museum that maps the history of the earth and humankind, further established this rural locale's personality. Covered in a thick carpet of the grass, the centre at least blends in with the environment.
Nevertheless adjacent to the centre are takeaways and curio shops, restaurants and a large concrete parking lot with its own posse of car guards, all recalling city life in Joburg. Do car thieves travel this far out? They certainly weren't checking into the Maropeng Hotel. Hours after arriving at this elegant establishment, which fuses modern design with a reverence for natural materials, we still hadn't encountered any other guests. Not that we were complaining; our trip had been designed around avoiding other people.
The hotel is cleverly positioned away from the visitor centre, with all the rooms and balconies facing an unspoilt stretch of undulating land. If you peek through the grasses you can make out a wire fence, so you have to keep your gaze focused on the horizon. After a few glasses of wine on the main veranda this mesmerising vista becomes all-encompassing.
The hotel's modest proportions and understated Afro-chic style mean one's focus is always centred on the views of the natural landscape. However, as tempting as it is to simply find a comfy chair and while away hours gazing into the distance, there are less sedentary activities that should be sampled while you are in the area.
One of the newest attractions is the Nirox Sculpture Park, which is within the Khatlampi Private Reserve, a 1 000 hectare area of unspoilt vegetation which is said to include animal life, too. Of course, the sculpture park is situated in manicured lawns, where most of the artworks are on display.
The natural beauty of the undulating lawns, broken up by strategically placed manmade dams, places a demand on the art; to compete with the natural aesthetics its scale and visual impact needs to be exaggerated or intensified. It's the Goodman Gallery's exhibition, Sources - Contemporary Sculpture in the Landscape, that is showing. And with a stable of some of the country's most notable talents in the visual arts - William Kentridge, Jeremy Wafer, Walter Oltmann, Kagiso Pat Mautloa and Brett Murray - there is a feast of art in the expansive park.
Armed with a map and anticipation, it feels like a bit of a treasure hunt as we begin to stroll around the park searching for all the unnatural features. Though it's colossal we almost miss Marco Cianfanelli's large steel structure that represents the silhouette of a human. The tone of the steel matches the surrounding trees. It's also easy to overlook because the sculpture only describes the outline of a human form, allowing one to view the landscape through it. But these are the characteristics that allow this artwork to feel integrated with the space, while upturning the normal relationship between humans and nature. Here the human form is so exaggerated that it isn't dwarfed by the dimensions of the trees. Titled Reconstruction - cradle to grave (2005-2009), it references its location in a figurative and metaphorical sense, speaking of the cycle of life and birth.
On top of an old stone aqueduct that arches over a stream we find Deborah Bell's Crossing, which consists of two steel and clay sculptures of a human and a dog that are placed inside two canoes. Resembling two ancient artefacts from a bygone era, they speak of history, origins, and the human compulsion to trace its genesis.
Exhausted from walking around the park, we eagerly join an "art safari", designed by the art collective, Rosenclaire, which is made up of Claire Gavronsky and Rose Shakinovsky.
The "art safari" runs much like a conventional game drive in that you are taken on a ride in an open vehicle around the bush to peer at various curiosities. On this occasion art is the oddity that steals our gaze. But it's a purely tongue-in-cheek affair rather than a bona fide mission to appreciate art. We aren't exactly travelling in a big 4x4 vehicle, just a golf cart that struggles over the rocky road that weaves around the park.
Cheeky signposts that read "the buck stops here" and "beware of falling stocks" keep the mood light as the little vehicle pushes up the hill toward a easel on which a landscape painting with faux-gold gilded-frame is propped. It's an installation piece called The Human Condition 2: Close your eyes and Think of England.
We giggle at this kitsch piece but the juxtaposition between the idealised English landscape that it portrays and the untamed African bush in which it stands compels us to contemplate the ways in which the South African topography has been adapted and moulded to fit the natural idylls as portrayed in this dated 19th Century painting.
There are a number of attractions on the "art safari" that challenge how we perceive the landscape.
As we edge around the corner of the koppie we find three women engaged in a performance piece, which sees them digging up imported plant life. The profusion of non-indigenous plants that have colonised the country's landscape simply confirms this compulsion to reshape the local land to fit a European ideal. Certainly, in this part of the world, where local institutions confirm Africa's centrality in the genesis of the human race, Africanness is asserted, rendering the removal of these foreign plants a political act.
Our next stop is at a disused building that has been turned into a makeshift museum. A cornucopia of objects from bones to clay effigies to old books form a disjointed and incomprehensible display, leaving the viewer to (re)construct the culture that it denotes. But as with everything this maverick duo set out to do, this installation is executed with a sense fun. A clay rendition of the "walking man" associated with the Johnny Walker label forms part of the hodgepodge of objects on display.
The "art safari" is an amusing jaunt, but underlying the humour Rosenclaire challenge the ways South African life was, and continues to be, constructed according to a European model and then deconstructed to retrieve a lost African identity.
The Maropeng Visitor Centre and the Sterkfontein caves are obviously tailored to achieve the latter. It's food for thought but it leaves our bellies hungry, so as we disembark from the golf cart we make a beeline for a long veranda that runs parallel to a dam in the centre of the Nirox Park, where a palatial feast has been put out to feed the artists, art buyers and visitors. For some of us the trip to the park is motivated by an interest in art; for others, such as the Goodman Gallery's moneyed guests, it presents a novel shopping excursion. The countryside provides a good backdrop for merchandising.
It's a hot afternoon so we are grateful for the green awning that hangs over the veranda, blocking the sun's piercing rays. We can't see it from where we are sitting but on the outside of the awning the artist Brett Murray has emblazoned text that reads: "Pass me the cucumber sandwiches darling we are having a revolution."
- For bookings at the Maropeng hotel call 014 577 9100 or email