junecorlett's VirtualTourist Home Page

On weekends we love to spend time on our boat with family. The Vaal dam is approximately 130km from Johannesburg Northern suburbs. There are many holiday homes on the banks of this dam. The dam is vast, with a circumferance of over 1000km. A lot of sea-going yachts are also moored on this dam. The Vaal dam has more yachts, power boats etc moored than all the marinas throughout South Africa's coastline. Approximately 500 families actually live on their yachts on this dam. The annual "Round the Island" Race takes place during the first weekend of February every year. It is a spectacular sight. About 400 yachts of different catagories enter this annual event. From Hobies, to huge CATS. The colourful "spinnakers" are a sight to behold.

We live in Johannesburg on an Estate. Very safe and easy living.

Latest page SWAZILAND and a big update and new tips on PHUKET and Phi Phi

Jet-ski's are available for hiring. Lots of fun on the water. A cruise ship had anchored from Phuket, allowing their passengers to spend a day on the island. We were inquisitive and took a ride out to the ship.

My best time on the dam is just before sunset. It is the time of day I like to relax on a cruise (booze-cruise) we call it that as we like to take a few"sundowners" with us. We do a gentle cruise with lovely music coming from the CD player on the boat. By the time the sun has set, which is about 7pm in summer, we are ready to light the fire for our traditional BRAAI (BBQ). On summer evenings you can see all the lightning in the distance, beautiful, until it creeps up on you and you have your own thunders storm. A storm generally lasts for about 20 minutes. It is not dangerous or scary. We are quite used to it. If the grandchildren are asleep by then, it does not even disturb them. We like taking friends to our house at the dam, it is very sociable, and Roger loves teaching people to ski, if they have not tried before.

James is 5 years old. He is our eldest granchild. He loves his "bing-pa" as he likes to call grand-pa. He has already been on the water, very gently on a "Tube" and loves it. He loves the open spaces. We have a few "meerkats" who visit us during the day, and James loves to feed them an egg, or a bit of "biltong" (dried meat).
Once James is 6 or 7 yrs old, his bingpa will teach him to ski.

Sunset on the Vaal.
Every summer evening we have a different sunset. Our summer skies are always slightly cloudy, due to our summer rainfall. The best sunsets are in summer. During the winter months we have cloudless skies as we have our dry season. The rains start in October through to late March.
Winter at the dam is extremely cold, therfore NO water sports for us, unless we are stupid......then we don wet-suits.

This is a "disc-type-tube". I dont know any other way to explain it. It has a back rest like a couch/sofa. Lots of fun, especially on a hot day. Have to beware of sunburn. Our youngest grandchild Josh (2 yrs old) has also had a ride on this. We always wear life jackets for water sports and insist on it with the little ones.

The estate we live on is (as estate agents would describe it) in the leavy suburb of Bryanston, Johannesburg.
We have access to the squash courts and flood-lit tennis court. We also have a large swimming pool for the use of the residents. Some families prefer to have their own pool (like us). It is more sociable and lovely for the grandchildren. Johannesburg is very hot during summer...there, a few swims a day cools you off. We also have a nice park for the children to play in.
We love where we live, as we have easy access to all the shopping centres.
The airport is about 38 km from our home.