Cradle of Humankind

Hello all,

This weekend I visted the new Cradle of Humanankind area outside
Johannesburg. The new museum was opened at the beginning of 2006 with
a lot of fanfare and publicity.

Here are my overall feelings:

1) Sterkfontein Caves. (The place where Mrs. Ples and Little Foot were
found) The caves are fairly interesting, and well worth seeing. There
is a 45 minute guided tour that is interesting, but not particularly
educational. The small museum outside the caves is well laid out and
nicely done.

2) Maropeng. This is the actual museum that received all the hype. It
is about 5 min drive from Sterkfontein Caves. In my opinion, it is a
shockingly poor museum, and I really don't recommend it. The external
design is beautiful. You approach the museum through a small
tourist/refreshment centre and enter a large grass covered dome into
the foyer of the museum.

There is an enormous water feature dominating the foyer, and vague
signs explaining that the basis of life is fire, earth, and water.
It's all very pretty, but quite vacuous. You then go downstairs and
get onto a small raft that proceeds down a waterway.

The waterway is an absolute shocker. It is supposed to be a journey
through fire and ice where you are supposed to imagine travelling
through iceberg fields, and past volcanos. The entire thing is
cringe-worthy. The fake glassfibre walls are so amateurish that they
look like a Grade 7 school science project. My overall feeling about
the water ride was that there ABSOLUTELY no reason for it's existance.
It was amateurish, has no educational or entertainment value, and is
incongruous in a area where water is so scarce and precious.

The rest of the museum is housed in a long corridor/hall. There are
dozens of exhibits dotted around the hall, most of which are poorly
documented so that most people don't really know what they're looking
at. There are some very good displays of Australopithecines and other
hominids, and a bunch of very poor childrens "touch and play" type
exhibits, several of which are already broken.

I hated the Maropeng experience, and I doubt if I'll go back there.

3) The Lion and Rhino Park. This is about 10 minutes drive from
Sterkfontein Caves. The park is great. It's a 30 to 45 minute drive
from Johannesburg, and they have Lion, Rhino, Buffalo, Ostrich, Zebra,
African Wild Dogs, Cheetah, and a variety of antelope. It's a great
place to take the kids too because they have tiger and lion cubs, etc.
in their nursery zoo. If you're in Johannesburg and don't have time to
do a proper safari to Kruger, then the Lion and Rhino park is a very
good place to go.

I hope people find this information of use.

Regards,
Marc - Johannesburg