Weekend of relaxing in Sun City

My first weekend in South Africa was spent in the resort town of Sun City with a wildlife safari added to it in the neighbouring Pilanesberg Game Reserve. It was a nice relaxing weekend, involving chilling in the pool, exploring the Sun City activities, enjoying the spa plus an early morning safari to give it the 'nature' touch. It wasn't anything extraordinary but a fun and convenient weekend getaway close to Johannesburg, definitely a great option if you have a weekend free when you don't want to stretch yourself too much.


I had heard about Sun City even during my last trip to SA in 2013, but hadn't managed to go there then. But this time it finally happened😃. What helped a lot was that it was an easy trip to plan - all you need to do is book the hotel and there is nothing else left to do. There are enough activities to do once you are there, that you do not need to worry about pre-booking or researching anything beforehand.

We left for Sun City lazily around 10 am, and were there within two hours. The drive was mostly on a highway, with only the last 30 or so kms requiring you to get off the main highway. We crossed Pretoria in the beginning and there were no other towns or cities on the way. It was overall quite a boring drive, with nothing interesting to see on the sides.

Most of the area was bare, or just full of vegetation in all hues of yellow (given the ongoing drought in South Africa). Also, unlike some other parts of Africa I have driven in (Kenya and Tanzania), there is no likelihood of spotting wild animals in South Africa anymore. I was almost expecting to see a few zebras and giraffes roaming around freely but saw nothing at all.

I was impressed with the whole transport infrastructure though. Everywhere we encountered good quality well maintained roads, perfect signage and an enjoyable driving experience. It did not feel like I was in Africa (or at least like the perception we all have of Africa!). Also another amazing thing I had never experienced till now was that on single lane roads, the cars ahead of you would always give way when they saw a fast approaching car from behind. The drivers do it themselves, without you honking the horn, even when you are far. It was such a weird thing for me to see, given I have mostly driven in India. I cannot tell you how excited I was when I got to drive like this!

Along the highway, there wasn't much habitation around. Except just outside Johannesburg, where we passed a couple of not-so-rich neighbourhoods and it struck me again what a mirage of development, the cities of South Africa are. Also, once we got off the highway, for the last 30 kms or so, we did see some settlements or townships on the road which made us aware again, that South Africa is a country of many poor, even if the cities and the infrastructure do not portray that truth. All these settlements had lots of small huts close to each other, all covered with tin sheets. And seeing the quality of these accommodation, one can clearly sense that this is where all the poor (and always black) people would be staying. Later I realised, a lot of the workers in Sun City also stay in these townships near the Resort.

And then you reach Sun City, a different world altogether. Sun City is a completely artificially built resort town located in a beautiful green valley, with its own lake and other amenities. It is literally a city by itself - with its own entrance gate, local metro and bus system, and so on. There are many different entertainment and residential options here to keep people entertained for long.

Palace of the Lost City

There are 4 main hotels in the City - Palace of the Lost City (built in the form of a palace), Cascades Hotel, Sun City Hotel & Casino (the first of the Sun hotels), and The Cabanas (in order of decreasing luxuriousness). Other than these four, there are a couple of residential complexes called Cabanas Club and Vacation Club, where locals have bought holiday homes. All these hotels are purely for relaxation and entertainment. And there is a feeling of luxury and opulence, which is difficult to describe - its all in the air when you enter them. They all have the typical shopping options, spas, golf courses, casinos, restaurants and pool complexes to keep guests busy and entertained, as well as other physical activities like a walk in the bird aviary in the Cascades hotel, tropical forest walk, zip lining, water activities in the local lake (Water World) and so on.

Additional to these, there is the Maze and the Valley of Waves which are pretty popular. And of course, if you love nature, you can go for a safari to the neighbouring Pilanesberg Game Reserve. The focus of Sun City is to provide you a variety of activities to keep you entertained, and it does that pretty well.

View from Cascades Hotel

We stayed at the Cascades Hotel, which was a typical hotel with a panoramic view of the valley and lake behind. It was so pretty that you could sit there for hours, just admiring the greenery all around. We decided not to do that though😉. The first day, we focused on enjoying the activities in the resort and the second day was spent on safari. And I can't overstress the conveniences of the resort at all - it was so easy to book everything, and it was all within 10 mins walking from each other😃.

View from the Raj, Sun City

Once we checked into our hotel, after admiring the view, the next thing we did was go looking for food. There were many options nearby, but since I hadn't had Indian for quite some time, we went to an Indian Restaurant call Raj in the neighbouring Sun hotel. We had a yum heavy and lazy lunch in the shadow of red and white flowers. And the sun felt soooo good, we could have stayed there for hours. Also, discovering Raj was a boon for my stay in SA - it turned out to be a chain restaurant and I ate in 2 others during my stay there - in Sandton and then in Cape Town. And my parents also ate in the Raj in MonteCasino and Gold Reef City near Apartheid Museum, both in Johannesburg. So it very soon became our local hangout across the country 😃.

By this time, we were already in the idyllic mood of the resort, which continued for the rest of the day also. After lunch, we first went to the Maze. It was an artificial maze created for tourists to get lost and then figure the way out. And at the end of the Maze, you reach a pub with a view of the Maze from the top. It was a lot of effort to get through it in the heat (it was 30+ degrees), and it turned out to be not that great or tough an activity either. Definitely a miss.

Valley of Waves

After the Maze, we went to the Valley of Waves. The walk up was grand, with animals sculpted on both sides and a impressive walkway built all the way. And the activity looked like a fun thing to do too except there were just TOO many people! It looked like half the city was there, so we decided to give it a miss and just thought of going to the Cabanas pool as our Cascades Hotel pool was being renovated.

Even though it was a 10-15 mins walk to cabanas, it did not turn out to be as easy. We got onto the wrong bus and then another wrong one, so we got a free half an hour drive around the whole resort😃. We did realise though how huge the whole complex was, and spotted a couple of peacocks around the Vacation Club area.

First view of wildlife in Cabanas Pool

Anyways in the end, we reached the Cabanas pool and chilled there for some time. And then went for a walk in the "tropical forest walk" behind our Cascades hotel. We also saw some baboons randomly walking around the hotel but smartly stayed away from them. And then we reached the aviary which turned out be actually very good - there were loads of birds of different varieties kept inside, and you can walk in and see them up close. We were too late by then though, and just observed some of them from the outside.

Since we had to go for a safari early in the morning at 5 am, we called it a day soon after, had a quick buffet dinner at the Peninsula restaurant in Cascades and slept off early.

Pilanesberg Game Reserve

Pilanesberg is the neighbouring Game Reserve to Sun City. It shares its boundary with the resort and hence provides another convenient option for entertainment. You can easily drive your car and do a self-drive safari if you want. We however took the official morning safari, which runs for about 3 hours and the guide drives you in a huge open safari vehicle, helping you spot animals more easily. Booking the safari is also easy - you just need to turn up at the entertainment centre and they take care of the rest.

This Game Reserve is built around an old crater. And the whole area is quite hilly and yellow, with dried out vegetation everywhere. There are a couple of water bodies also but we did not see many animals near them.

Pilanesberg Game Reserve

Our safari started at 5am and we had a well informed guide who shared a lot of information with us about the animals and Pilanesberg. She started the day with a gem which I loved - "All big animals eat grass and are vegetarians except cats and dogs". I found it quite insightful and wondered why I had never thought of it till now😄.

Warthog

I would rate our safari as an ok one, nothing extraordinary but nothing boring either. We saw lots of rhinos, one lone elephant eating leaves, standing on top of a hill, a hippo out of water, a giraffe, two warthogs, few zebras, wildebeests, a couple of baboons, langurs, some kudus, many herds of impalas, two red hartebeests running away from us and a Tsessebe. Actually now it doesn't seem as less as I felt on the safari. I was so excited seeing the animals and observing them, it was if I was on a safari for the first time😃. And I learnt something more about all the animals too from our guide.

Baboons: We started our safari with seeing a group of baboons sitting on a dam wall. Apparently they sleep there everyday as its easier to jump into the water and run away from leopards if they attack the baboons when they are sleeping. It is interesting to see how man-made things can modify animal behaviour!!

Black rhino

Rhinos: We saw loads of rhinos in our 3 hours, at least 10-15 of them in about 6-7 spottings. To the point, that by the end, we even stopped stopping to observe them even!! (While in my last Africa trip to Kenya and Tanzania, we had spent 5 days of safaris, and not seen a single rhino).

Two white rhinos

Most of the rhinos we saw were white rhinos hanging out together in groups of twos, and only one black rhino walking around alone. Apparently you can distinguish black and white rhinos from afar as you will be able to see the black rhino's face as they eat leaves from the top of bushes. And white rhinos, eat grass from the ground and you rarely see their face. The rhinos can't see well at all, only their hearing is good. That is why when they get upset and try to run away from humans and predators, they end up running directly into them, as if charging at them. And also, sometimes the black rhinos end up chasing the white rhinos (or vice versa) even though they cannot mate with each other 😀. (You learn so much more about the animals every time you go on safaris)

Male rhinos generally stay solitary, while the mother and child stay together for a couple of years. Most of the rhinos we spotted in twos were a mother with her calf, except the first one who were of the same age. So it could have been that their mothers were poached, and they joined forces and started hanging out together. Apparently, one rhino is killed every 8 mins in the world. And if it continues like this, they will be finished within 8 years. The situation seems very critical now, and when I asked our guide how many rhinos there were in the park, she said they are not allowed to say that for the same reason.

Elephant: Our Big Five sighting in this safari was quite sad. Other than tons of rhinos, all we saw was one lone male elephant eating leaves from a tree up on a hill. It was a male who had left the herd and was roaming around alone. Apparently, elephants cannot climb mountains except in Pilanesberg where they have learnt to, for food and because it is 3 degrees warmer up the crater rather than inside! Ongoing and continuous animal evolution, eh?

Hippos in water

Hippo: We saw a Hippo outside water - he must have got out during the night to eat and was just now getting back into the water as the sun was about to come out soon and their sensitive skin gets spoilt in the sun😀 . Apparently hippos can walk underwater too.

A dazzle of zebra

Zebras: A group of Zebras is called dazzle - as they dazzle their predators who cannot make out the individual zebras when the herd runs together. This can confuse the zebras' predators when they try to hunt them.

Blue wildebeest

Blue Wildebeest: Wildebeests and zebras are the animals who are famous for their migration, but the wildebeests in Pilanesberg have stopped migrating as they can get enough food here even in the low season😃.

Tsessebe

Tsessebe: They are the fastest antelopes in the world and can run up to a speed of 80 kmph. Apparently none of the other predators can catch it, and only lions are able to hunt it.

Langurs on guard

Langurs: We saw a couple of Langurs sitting on top of a tree and keeping guard while their friends were eating on the ground. And then soon they would have swapped, the ones whose breakfast was done would get onto the top of trees to keep a watch around and the rest would eat.

At the end of the safari, we stopped at a water body where we saw nothing and then it was time to go back. We also saw some people take a balloon ride within the park. Am not sure if you see more animals that way, but who knows?

Balloon ride

After we were back from the safari, the sun was up again, and we did not have any energy left to do anything else. So we went into the spa and spent a couple of hours there, relaxing and getting all kinds of stuff done at rates half of what it is in London. We had yummy lunch again at the Raj and then it was time to drive back.

It took us the same two hours to drive back and the drive was non-eventful. We saw a couple of beautiful views of the sunset while driving back which made the drive more enjoyable than when we were driving there. And this was the start of my African travels😃.

I would rate Sun City as a must-do if you are in Joburg and not doing anything. Its definitely a great place to spend a weekend, if nothing else, then getting a lot of sun and Vitamin D😀.