This is our first cache, hope it’s a
fun find. If you have any advice/way to improve this cache or any
further caches, please pop us a mail. It would be much
appreciated.
The cache is on the opposite side of the
park to the lake (The less busy side of the park), but as it is
still busy this side, please use stealth (A plastic bag and doing a
private CITO will be good cover).
Zoo Lake is a favourite of Joburg
residents. Zoo Lake is a great place for picnicking, walking your
dog, taking a leisurely boat ride, a lovely meal at the African
themed restaurant and of course GEOCACHING. It also boasts having
many sporting facilities like Archery, Bowls, Cricket,
Hockey, Soccer, Swimming and Tennis.
The land was donated by Beit and Co in
1904, in honour of Herman Eckstein, with a stipulation that the
park be divided into a public park and a zoological garden, another
condition of the gift of the Zoo and Zoo Lake to the city was that
the areas remain open to people of all races.
A Bit of
History
Zoo Lake is part of the Herman
Eckstein Park, a private forest previously known as the Sachsenwald
given as a deed of gift to people of Johannesburg in 1904 with
strict orders that it be used as a public park. Joburg Zoo and the
South African Museum of Military History are also situated on the
same property.
The land was named after the late
Eckstein, a founder member of the Chamber of Mines and Rand Club.
After his death, his partners offered the city Sachsenwald
forest.
The Deed of Gift read: "Whereas the late Hermann Eckstein was
in his lifetime a resident in the town of Johannesburg and always
took a deep interest in its advancement and prosperity, and played
an active part in many schemes and undertakings for its improvement
and whereas it has appeared to us that the dedication of a suitable
area of land for the use of the public of Johannesburg, as a public
park, would have met with the cordial approval of our late friend
and will be acceptable to fellow townsmen."
Hermann Eckstein
The founders of Zoo Lake broke the
barriers when they proclaimed Zoo Lake and the Johannesburg Zoo
opened to all races, something unheard of in South Africa at the
time.
The area that is now the Lake used to
be a marshland. This water came from the Parktown spruit which
rises in Valley Road on the Westcliff ridge, and which makes its
way through the Zoo, then under Jan Smuts Avenue, to Zoo Lake.
In 1906, the city council decided to build the lake in the
marshland, which immediately became a major attraction for the
people of Johannesburg. Zoo Lake turned 100 on the
7th of February 2006.
Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, adventurer,
politician and author of Jock of the Bushveld, who was acting head
of Rand Mines for a time, housed wild animals he brought back from
his hunting trips, in the forest. He brought back a lion that had
lost a foot, and kept a baby hippo that lived in the Parktown
spruit. Except for the hippo, all the animals were in cages. This
eccentric menagerie became one of the "sights" of Johannesburg for
the amusement-starved populace, and eventually made up the first
stock of the Zoo.
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