Heidelberg

Heidelberg sits just off the N3 highway, 50 km southeast of Johannesburg at the foot of the Suikerbosrand hills. It was founded in 1862 as a trading post by the German settler Heinrich Julius Ueckermann, and by 1866 it had its own landdrost and district. The town carries a weight of South African history that most visitors pass at 120 km/h without knowing. During the First War of Independence, from 1880 to 1883, Heidelberg served as the capital of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek under the Triumvirate of Paul Kruger, Piet Joubert, and M.W. Pretorius. A generation later, the British established a concentration camp here during the Second Boer War to hold Boer women and children. A monument in the main cemetery commemorates them, along with the black women and children who also died.

The Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve starts just west of town and runs across 12,000 hectares of Highveld hills. Named after the sugar bush Protea, it has a 60 km tourist route by vehicle and a network of backpacking trails. Self-catering chalets are available inside the reserve. Nearby, Marievale Bird Sanctuary, just north of Heidelberg near Nigel, holds 280 bird species and is a Ramsar-designated wetland. The sanctuary was shaped by mining operations that inadvertently created prime waterbird habitat, which is one of those stories that is uniquely South African. Reedbuck, blesbok, and black-backed jackal also move through the area.

The town itself is a real working town. The N3 brings through-traffic and the freight industry, and Heidelberg has the commercial character of a place that has been serving the region for 160 years. The Valpre water bottling plant operates nearby. The streets have churches, a magistrates court, older buildings that hold the history quietly, and the kind of hardware stores and farm supply shops that tell you this is still an agricultural service centre.

Heidelberg is the administrative seat of Lesedi Local Municipality in the Sedibeng District. For road-trippers heading to Durban on the N3, it is the first real town south of Johannesburg. It is worth more than a fuel stop.