Being atop an 18-story building does that to a person.
I recently visited the Telkom building in Springs and was taken all the way to the top with our piggy, Bridget.
Never being really afraid of heights, I was quite brave and went to the edge and looked over.
I nearly dropped to the ground along with my stomach, and reversed back at high speed to relative safety.
It is really, really high up.
Cars look like tiny toy cars and people like teeny ants.
When I (and my turning stomach) got used to the view, I realised how beautiful this town actually is, apart from the rooftops that didn’t look very appealing.
But it felt like I could see the world from up there.
Springs was lying there beneath my feet and life was going on undisturbed.
There were no signs of the crime and all the other ugly things going on, just silence and the beauty that few people get to experience.
I also never actually realised how big the town is.
It’s huge!
As far as I could see, it was just Springs.
A town that has so much potential, but is tainted with the bad things that go on and the state the town is in.
Just a few fun facts about our town:
Springs was proclaimed as a town in April 1904.
That’s 111 years ago.
But it was already inhabited long before that… I don’t know the exact dates.
Before Springs became such a big gold mining town, it was a coal mining town.
After the coal was depleted, gold was discovered.
At its prime, Springs produced 10% of the country’s gold and was the biggest gold mining town in SA.
Now I don’t know about you, but I think that’s something to be proud of.
Of course, many would say that Springs has deteriorated a lot, I might not necessarily disagree, but Springs can still be made into a prime town to be proud of.
It just takes time and effort, maybe a lot of the latter.
It’ll be a shame to see the sight I experienced up there go to waste.
It truly was a memorable moment and my attitude towards the town has changed for the better.
A place with so much history need to be seen for what it can be, not for what it is.
