Elandsdrift, West Rand

Virtually on the doorstep of the Cradle of Humankind, Elandsdrift, just outside Johannesburg en route to the Magaliesberg, lies in a more rural part of the city, perfect for weekend getaways and popular for wedding venues and business breakaways. Elandsdrift is close to Lanseria airport, making it ideal for those on fleeting visits to the city - by landing here you circumvent the city and its notorious traffic, and yet have easy access to Fourways, Sandton, Randburg and Pretoria.

Elandsdrift and the surrounding area is a beautifully scenic and tranquil part of the city. It lies perched on the edge of Jo’burg’s sprawl - far enough out of the city to have largely escaped the push of development that has hit Johannesburg like a tidal wave over the last few years, yet if you need access to the city, it has good access to the major highways of the N1 and R28.

The Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site lies just west of Elandsdrift - some 47 000 hectares that include 13 excavated sites that have revealed an incredible amount about life-forms going back over millions of years, bearing in mind that human ancestry started to evolve 200 000 years ago. These sites include the exciting Sterkfontein cave, probably the most famous of all the hominin related caves in the world because of the discovery of ‘Mrs Ples’ and ‘Little Foot’ who has still not yet been fully excavated.