The adjoining Granny Doris cafe and restaurant recently received The Sunday Tribune Cafe Society 2017 for being one of the top 100 places to stop for a cuppa in the Midlands. There are crocheted and knitted items, flower vases, kitsch figurines, handmade costume jewellery as well as little bits and bobs that will make for good souvenirs. Lyn takes me on a bit of a walk about. There’s a guinea pig palace (as she calls it) and a little farmyard complete with a pond for the kids. If you’re an antique hunter and love hoarding bric-a-brac then this is heaven. They have seven cats and three dogs, which will come out to greet you when you arrive. It’s run by Scottish Lyn Hansen, who we found tending to her garden. The Patchwood Elephant is less than three minutes up the road (since you’re already here). It’s an interactive artwork that allows us to walk between the poles, which were erected in 2012 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his arrest. As we walk along the pathway (which symbolises Mandela’s long walk to freedom) 50 steel poles come together to reveal his face. Entrance to the sculpture and exhibition hall are free, although they accept donations. The site is now part of the Apartheid Museum. They had known I was in Durban and that I would be returning to Johannesburg.” Someone had tipped the police off about my whereabouts. I had always known that arrest was a possibility, but even freedom fighters practise denial, and in my cell that night I realised I was not prepared for the reality of capture and confinement. I now had time to ruminate on my situation. “Cecil and I were locked in separate cells. He seemed a bit irritated and then he said, ‘Ag, you’re Nelson Mandela, and this is Cecil Williams, and you are under arrest!’. “I parried these without giving him much information. He nodded, and then, in a very proper way, he asked me a few questions about where I had been and where I was going. I immediately assumed he had been waiting for us for several days. He was unshaven and it appeared that he had not slept in quite a while. “When our car stopped, a tall slender man with a stern expression came directly over to the window on the passenger side. “At Cedara, a small town just past Howick, I noticed a Ford V-8 filled with white men shoot past us on the right… I knew in that instant that my life on the run was over my 17 months of ‘freedom’ were about to end. “Cecil and I were engrossed in discussions of sabotage plans as we passed through Howick, 20 miles north-west of Pietermaritzburg. Here are some extracts about that moment from his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. It’s where he was arrested on charges of leaving South Africa without a passport and calling for a workers strike. This is the spot where Mandela’s car was pulled over by the police on the 5th August 1962. Then we slowly made our way back to the Midlands Meander along numerous other stops. This was the furthest point we visited (in the direction of Durbs). You could probably spend anything from two to three days along the length of Nottingham Road, especially if you were to stop at every attraction on the way.īut if you’re only passing by on your way to Durban and only have time to stop at one attraction it has to be the Nelson Mandela capture site. ![]() It does not store any personal data.There are a number of self-drive routes though the Midlands Meander that you can explore at your own pace. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. ![]() The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". ![]() The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.
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