Woodmead, Sandton

Woodmead, immediate neighbour to Sunninghill and Gallo Manor, is essentially a commercial suburb in northern Johannesburg. What makes it particularly viable is its position at the meeting of a number of highways - the N1, the N3 and the M1 interchange here - so it isn’t surprising that several big businesses have set themselves up as access is easy and fast.

But Woodmead hardly suffers the usual commercial zone side-effects. The city is pretty out this way, en route to Kyalami and Midrand, and Sunninghill is a buzzing enclave made up predominantly of leafy gated communities and little strip malls, popular with those working in Sandton, Fourways and Midrand.

The incredibly popular Pick n Pay 94.7 cycle challenge starts in Woodmead at the intersection of Woodmead Drive and Van Reenen, the second largest individually timed cycle race in the world. The streets of the city of Johannesburg belong to cyclists for a day that has now introduced a new urban loop through the heart of the city centre of Johannesburg.

Woodmead is also home to the Woodmead golf course, an 18-hole course famous for its dogleg-right 389 metre par-four 7th hole known as ‘the Gobbler’ after the thicket that appears to claim golf balls. A little further up the drag, en route to Midrand (an alternative back route along the old Pretoria Main Road) is Vodacom’s World of Golf, which helps you improve your golf by practising every shot imaginable.