Winter warm-up on Melville Koppies
Melville Koppies is open between 08:00 and 11:30 every Sunday.
When you move to Joburg from places where the minimum temperature hardly ever goes below double digits in winter, long-time residents will tell you “buy a house that’s north-facing”.
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This is sound advice.
If you don’t, you’ll end up miserable in winter not helped by load-shedding and you’ll find that during the day, it’s warmer outside than in your house.
The first people that lived on Melville Koppies hundreds of thousands of years ago knew all about north-facing.
Visit Melville Koppies and you’ll see signs of where the hunter-gatherers and the first farmers lived.
All the old settlements were on the north-facing slopes, nestled into the side of the ridge, protected from the bitterly cold southerly breeze and guaranteed to get all the warming winter sun.
The hunter-gatherers left only their sharpened stone tools as evidence: scrapers that they used as knives, or bigger stone axes.
Remains of the low stone walls built by the first farmers to delineate their homesteads are still visible as is just one of the many furnaces that they used to smelt iron-bearing rock to fashion steel knives, spears and hoes.
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Visit Melville Koppies on a Sunday.
Book a guided tour on 079 532 0083 or be there by 08:30 and you’ll have your eyes opened to the evidence of where the first Joburg inhabitants lived.
Or you can self-guide yourself on the heritage trail which points out some of this evidence.
If you just want to get fit, try out the 5km hike or take a map and just meander along the many different paths that criss-cross the Koppies.
Melville Koppies is open between 08:00 and 11:30 every Sunday.
Entry fees cost R80 for adults and R40 for children.
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All income is used for maintenance of the Koppies which amounts to R22 000 needed each month.
Security on the Koppies is provided and visitors can park in secure parking opposite the entrance at Marks Park in Judith Road, Emmarentia.
For more information, contact wendavid@mweb.co.za or call 079 532 0083.
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