South Africa Guide
Gauteng
TransvaalMuseum
Price: Daily 8am–5pm
Price: R10
Website: www.sarep.org/info/culture/museums.htm
Address: Paul Kruger Street
The grand TransvaalMuseum is Pretoria's oldest museum and centrepiece of the Northern Flagship Institution, the collective name for Pretoria's main museums. Dedicated to natural history, the museum has plenty of stuffed animals, models of dinosaurs and wonderful fossil remains, some over a million years old. This is a good place to come if your interest in man's origins has been stirred by the discoveries of the nearby Cradle of Humankind: alongside a bronze bust of Robert Broom staring into the three-million-year-old eye sockets of Mrs Ples is an assortment of fossilized discoveries and various models and reconstructions of early hominid life. Nearby is a selection of stuffed animals, never particularly inspiring when many of the animals can be seen alive and kicking in game reserves not too far away. In the Austin Roberts Bird Hall, you'll find an informative exhibit on South Africa's many species of birds, while the Geoscience Museum showcases another Gauteng speciality, rocks and minerals.