New route, new discovery

At lunch time I had to head to Midrand, from Benoni, to fetch stuff from Cell C's warehouse for the 'Take a Girl Child to Work' thing tomorrow (one of my clients, an attorney, is hosting six girls for the day from neighbouring schools). Following directions sent to me by Cell C, I took the R21 North, then the N14/N1 south, getting off at Samrand. Long, long route. I overshot the entrance to the office park, turning around at Olifantsfontein.

As I was heading North on the R21, I'd seen the Olifantsfontein Rd and wondered where it junctioned with the N1 South (or Old Joburg Road as it turned out to be). My Jo'burg map book doesn't cover Centurion and Midrand; and my Pretoria doesn't cover them either. And I hadn't check Google Maps before leaving the office.

Overshooting was fortuitious because I 'discovered' the other end of Olifantsfontein Rd. I took this route back to Benoni and cut a good 20km off my return journey.

On the way I also noticed a really nice looking dam. It's off Olifantsfontein Rd between Old Joburg Rd and the R21. I saw water ski jumps on the water and a clubhouse-type building. The web address on a sign said http://www.base3.co.za/; they do cableski, wakeboarding, knee boarding - that kinda stuff.

New dam off Olifantsfontein Rd.

This could be quite a nice dam to paddle on... I wonder how friendly the peeps there are? Dam looks nice and clean. My Google Earth rough measurement give a 1.4km loop. Bigger than Emmies. GE pic of the new dam below; and a pic of Emmarentia Dam from the same eye altitude for comparison.

Emmarentia dam - from same eye altitude as new dam for size comparison