Field Trip: Bones to pick Maropeng

An easy hour's drive from Johannesburg to the Cradle of Humankind will put your life into perspective.

It's where the oldest hominid fossils have been found, the place where humans originated. We highlight four things to do in the area.

Star-Gazing

A chilly Saturday night, cloudless and windless, is perfect for gazing at stars. Unless it's full moon - its light makes everything else practically invisible. In that case you need a lecture, entertaining and informative, about US astronaut Neil Armstrong and the boys' landing 45 years ago.

It's a happy alternative and not just for adults - my eight-year-old was bug-eyed with wonder as resident astronomer Vincent Nettman described how the engines of the world's largest supertanker would be just about sufficiently powerful to run one of the two fuel injectors to one of the five engines that fired Apollo 11. Monthly astro evenings are held either at the Maropeng Boutique Hotel or at the Maropeng Visitor Centre. Great stuff.

Maropeng Boutique Hotel

We combined stargazing with a night at the Maropeng Boutique Hotel. Two interlinking rooms at the end of an outdoor corridor kept other guests far enough away from any unwelcome child noise. The rooms are comfortable and perfectly understated.

Our dinner was acceptable, the service delightful and the undisturbed view sweeping across the hills towards the Witwaterberg and Magaliesberg mountains was more restful than anything else the hotel could offer. The curved low-slung building lay against the hill, like a lion lying against a rock in the sun. Check the website for affordable specials.

Exhibition

Inside the Tumulus building, which looks like a giant burial mound, an exhibition takes you on a journey of discovery from the beginnings of the world, through the history of humankind, into the future. A timeline along the walls of a downward-sloping passage takes you to the start of a multi-sensory boat ride, giving you the experience of all the elements coming together in the formation of the planet. The family favourite was crossing a static bridge through a spinning tube lit up to look like stars, sweeping us off balance. It is intended to make you feel like you're walking through a black hole. Weird.

Next up was the "theatre of life" that tells the story of evolution, has interactive games, large installations of our unattractive ancestors and a fossil display.

Sterkfontein Caves

About 11km from the Maropeng Visitors Centre is the site where palaeoanthropologist Dr Phillip Tobias spent many of his working hours digging. The Sterkfontein Caves is one of the richest hominid fossil sites in the world. It's where in 1947 Dr Robert Broom found the adult skull of an Australopithecus africanus,"Mrs Ples", helping to prove that Africa is the origin of humanity. It's also where, almost 50 years later, Dr Ron Clarke identified "Little Foot", an early Australopithecus skeleton.

The guided tour down into the caves is fascinating. There isn't much to see but the tales of Italian miners digging for limestone and of archaeologists digging for the bones of our ancestors are riveting.

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