The Wonderboom
travel · 📍 Pretoria, South Africa
The Wonderboom — Attraction / activity in Pretoria, South Africa. A fig tree over 1000 years old. The tree, now a national monument, is unusually large, standing some 25 metres high and having a 5.5-metre diameter main trunk. Its growth pattern is also unusual: as its branches grew longer, they drooped towards the ground and eventually took root and formed a circle of new trunks or daughter trees around the original tree. There are now 13 trunks, and the colossal tree covers an area with a diameter of 55 metres. Wonderboom Nature Reserve has a large number of dassies (rock hyrax) living in caves overlooking the Apies River. They provide a food source for a breeding pair of black eagles that nest on a rocky ledge nearby and that can often be seen circling above the reserve. At the top of the Wonderboom Hill are the ruins of the Wonderboom Fort, one of four forts built by the former South African Republic at the end of the 19th century to defend Pretoria against the British forces. It was never used. It was blown up, probably on the instruction of Prime Minister Jan Smuts, in the early days of the Second World War, lest it be used by anti-government dissidents as a springboard for an attack on the state. At the foot of the hill near the Wonderboom is an important Iron Age site and nearby is one of the best Stone Age sites in the area. The reserve has picnic facilities. Price: R41 adults, R25 children, seniors R26. Listed on Wikivoyage (CC-BY-SA). Source: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Pretoria
- Category
- travel · tours
- Address
- Wonderboom Nature Reserve, Pretoria, South Africa
- City
- Pretoria
- Region/State
- Africa
- Country
- South Africa
- Phone
- +27 12 440 8316, +27 12 341 5204
- Website
- http://www.tshwane.gov.za/sites/tourism/NatureConservation/Pages/Wonderboom-Nature-Reserve.aspx