An adventurous Heritage Month journey through Heidelberg’s past

Nicola Mawson, Russel Harris, and Ginger set out on another adventure. Again, getting lost as they head to Heidelberg to see a steam train race planes. Which isn't exactly how the day panned out.

It shouldn’t be difficult to get to a touristy spot in our own province of Gauteng. Heidelberg is 40 minutes away from Joburg on a traffic-free Saturday.

It's a mere 55.2 kilometres from our starting point, according to Google Maps. It’s not a complicated journey from Johannesburg.

Get onto the N3 towards Durban and get off the freeway with the clearly marked “Heidelberg” exit.

That’s until your GPS, in its omniscient wisdom, tells you that you should actually be going a different way on the freeway, and takes you off to Edenvale, 10 kilometres in the wrong direction.

We were confused, and the conversation in the car turned to whether this very long diversion was meant to shield us from a major incident and subsequent delays.

Getting off the highway at the, well, Edenvale offramp, Waze then decided we should do a U-turn and head back the way we came.

Our next destination – this time according to both Google Maps and Waze – was Germiston, 15 kilometres after we left Edenvale.

Had we turned right at the offramp, we could have gone to the South African Airways Museum and not only seen planes, but also been allowed to climb around inside of them.

Or we could have visited Germiston Lake and had lunch while watching sailboats. Another option would have been to go to Rand Airport and watch small planes take off.

Instead, we were told to turn back onto the freeway and keep driving along the N3. At least we were going in the right direction.

As we wanted to take photographs of a steam train racing vintage planes, which was the whole point of the day trip in the first place, we soldiered on and continued to follow the anonymous voices from the phones.

We were joining the Joburg Photowalkers group, a Facebook family of like-minded friends.

We should have just printed out the directions from the internet.

Finally, almost there. Almost

Since we were finally heading in the right direction, having carefully checked where we were being directed by zooming out on both apps, we started relaxing. By now, we had been on the road for an hour, which was a bit much, and we were starting to get hungry.

What we didn’t realise was that we still had a way to go, travelling down dodgy roads that were vaguely marked, if at all, so much so that it wasn’t clear whether the oncoming bakkie was in our lane, or us in theirs. There were, of course, potholes to swerve around.

Both GPSs told us we had reached our destination. Heidelberg’s airfield.

Pulling into the dirt road and stopping at an entrance gate, we discovered that our destination wasn’t there, but rather back where we had already driven.

This was starting to feel like deja vu, or Groundhog Day. The guys at the airfield gate sent us back past the turn-off to what Heidelberg considers its CBD. After driving past the road at which they had said we should be turning left, twice, we spotted the tar road they meant and went down that way.

Now we were heading in the direction of the old airfield, the GPS said. Thankfully, there was a police station; except the cops had no idea where to go.

Back under the same railway bridge we went, pulling over just left of it to – again – ask the group we were meeting where, exactly, they were. By this time, which direction we were facing was a mystery.

They were by the bridge, apparently. Except we couldn’t see them, and it’s not like we shouldn’t have been able to spot cars and people.

Eventually, a phone call guided us to make another U-turn, drive slowly, take the bumpy dirt road obscured by waving grass (challenging our SUV), turn right, and don’t go straight at the fork.

Eventually, we found the group we had been trying to catch up with for an hour and a half.

We really should have taken up the suggestion to meet at a central point in eastern Johannesburg and followed the lead car, as the driver knew where he was going.

It was a relief to finally get out of the car and stretch our legs. Ginger, the cat-sized mixed dog, was pleased too and bounded off wagging her tail. It takes patience to get the right picture, and we were also waiting for the train.

We milled about, enjoying the scenery, and trying to find the right spot and choose the correct camera lens.

Some of the group decided to clamber up the grassy incline to check out the rails while we waited for the promised train.

Those on two legs battled a bit more than the four-legged companion we had brought along, and there was much sliding down the hill.

Watching the steam train chugging and puffing along the tracks from the bottom of the incline was magical, even in the absence of the promised actual race against vintage planes.

Russ, however, took his life in his hands and decided he was climbing up the grassy and steep incline with his camera and found himself head-on with the age-old approaching steam engine, which seemed to be hurtling toward him with alarming speed.

Nikki and the dog wisely stood at the bottom of the hill, as did the rest of the group, and snapped pictures from there.

Frantically backpedalling down the tracks away from the approaching locomotive, Russ stumbled over the tracks. The approaching train seemed to be coming along faster than what we had all imagined.

This ancient boiler on wheels brought to life a long bygone era in which people sat in first class and enjoyed lavish meals with silver cutlery, while those in lower classes were squeezed into cabins. After Russ’ brush with mortality, it was clear he needed a zoom lens.

Time for planes

When the steam engine had passed and Russ had slipped and slid down the hill away from the tracks, everyone made their way over the road – dashing between cars – to photograph the vintage aircraft.

These included the ubiquitous Harvard and several biplanes which painted trails across a bright blue sky. There was also a historical procession of cars and motorcycles spanning back to the 1920s, which was great to see, but difficult to photograph.

The Harvard was once the dominant training aircraft employed by the SAAF. In service since the Second World ,War, today only a handful survive and are often seen at airshows around the country, blessing one and all with their eternal drone.

This was an absolutely memorable experience but didn’t last nearly as long as we would have liked. The airfield, which turned out to actually be the right place to look at planes after all, was not ideal for shooting; plane-after-plane and car-after-car parked almost on top of each other.

And the aircraft were, for the most part, pretty contemporary. It was, however, super to be able to step back in time and have a clear view of cars and motorbikes from a past time. 

A fortune of history

Setting off into town, and it being Heritage Day, we soon found ourselves at the Heidelberg Heritage Museum where we had lunch in a courtyard behind a carriage from a different time that had been turned into a restaurant.

Hotdogs and fries it was, with Ginger – the dachshund x whippet x jacky – enjoying some hotdogs too.

Walking around what was the obvious place to visit to see some of the heart of historical Heidelberg, we stumbled upon a subterranean jail cell once inhabited by Mahatma Gandhi

According to our very sweet tour guide, this historic locale also commemorated Nelson Mandela, who received the keys to the town and was bestowed with the Freedom of Heidelberg at the Ratanda Stadium.

Alongside these giants of humanity, it was somewhat unsettling to learn that the AWB was also founded in the Heidelburg suburb of Rensburg.

The town indeed holds a significant place in the country's history.

Established in 1862, it played a notable role during the 19th and 20th centuries when South Africa was experiencing significant political and social changes. 

With little else to see, save for a vintage shop where the owner’s dog displayed a distinct lack of enthusiasm for Ginger's company, we headed home.

As the day drew to a close, the group’s topic of conversation turned to photography and which sites we could next explore as tourists in our own country, as it so often does with keen snappers.

Back home we went.

This time, following the signs and not the GPS(s).

A return journey to see more of the town and some of its historical buildings was definitely on the cards until we went back and were disappointed as there is no more to the dorp than the touristy square.

IOL