A journey through history at Melville Koppies

Melville Koppies Nature Reserve and Heritage Site is said to be the perfect place for schoolteachers and university lecturers who want their learners and students to experience for themselves history, ecology, and more.

Learners of Roodepoort-based Skyline Combined School were the latest school to try it out. More than 30 Grade 10 and 11 learners eagerly walked in the footsteps of those that had made Melville Koppies their home many, many years ago.

Volunteer at the Koppies, Jenny Grice, said some learners spotted the bright red berries of the parasitic mistletoe. “They [learners] were told how to squeeze them, then plaster a branch with the sticky berries,” she said, adding their ancestors had done exactly the same on the Koppies before them.

Grice shared how celebrating Heritage Month by visiting and seeing more archaeological treasures such as the stone tools used by hunter gatherers hundreds of thousands of years ago, and the stone walls made by the first farmers to encircle their homesteads, would be a great way for you to spend your morning.

Details: Wendy Carstens, wendavid@mweb.co.za