20 Oct Sept/Oct 2022
Put some Spring in your step!
Spring has sprung, and nowhere more so than in our beautiful city of Durban!
While the city’s year-round weather is sublime, Spring creates a special attraction, with nature in full bloom and forming the perfect backdrop to the city’s natural splendour and taking in the city’s sights with Durban Walking Tours.
Calling all schools!
Durban Walking Tours’ highly informative school walking tours have been very successful with both teachers and pupils, and schools that are keen and able to do excursions with their pupils are urged to enquire about the available tour offerings.
During the third term, Durban Walking Tours has offered dedicated learning excursion tours to several government and private schools, including primary and high schools from Pietermaritzburg, Upper Highway, Umhlanga and the North Coast.
Grade 7 pupils have enjoyed learning about Ghandi, while others have been enchanted by the Point where they have explored and discovered the facadism and gentrification of the precinct’s buildings. Yet others have been tutored on the harbour and its workings, and also included the City’s Roof Top garden.
while another popular option is the lesson in business and economics offered by the Warwick and Indian Markets walking tour.
Call Durban Walking Tours on 064-542-0822, email info@durbanwalkingtours.co.za or book via www.durbanwalkingtours.co.za
Lace up your walking shoes for our charity walk!
Now is the time for Durbanites to unite and get behind a great cause – the renovation of the former Addington Children’s Hospital. Durban Walking Tours (DWT) is hosting a charity walk in aid of this landmark facility’s planned upgrade and calls on Durbanites to assist.
This approximately two-hour walk at 8.30am on Thursday, 20 October aims to raise funds towards the children’s hospital’s sorely-needed refurbishment.
The R160 tour fee will be donated to the administrators overseeing the refurbishment project. Anyone who has done a DWT Point Tour will recall having heard how the children’s hospital was founded by none other than Perla Siedle’s mother, Amelia Mary Siedle, who was a key figure in the history of the Point area.
What was previously known as Addington Children’s Hospital (but will once revamped and re-opened, be known as KwaZulu-Natal Children’s Hospital) takes pride of place along the Golden Mile, adjacent to another landmark, Addington Hospital.
Built in 1928, it was the first hospital for children on the African continent. However, in 1984, at the peak of the huge combined internal and international struggle against Apartheid, the hospital’s wards were closed by the apartheid government as it treated children of colour. The hospital remained closed for an astounding 28 years. Following its closure, the hospital’s seven buildings fell into deep disrepair.
Now renamed the KZN Children’s Hospital, plans are afoot to not only restore her to her former glory but to bring the facility firmly into the 21st century. Once completely re-established, it will be part of the creation of a provincial ‘first’ health precinct and proposed inner city regeneration project that will address adult and child health and welfare issues, poverty and urban renewal in Durban’s inner city.
For more details, email info@durbanwalkingtours.co.za
Holiday fun planned for year-end holidays
Durban Walking Tours is looking forward to hosting the next instalment of its children’s holiday activities walking tour again during the December school holidays.
Watch this space as these tours are very popular with parents who realise the need to ensure they have activities lined up to fight boredom among their children during the long year-end school holidays.
Watch the website (www.durbanwalkingtours.co.za) to see when dates become available.
March along to Durban military history tour
Military enthusiasts will be enthralled to learn that another city military history tour is planned for Thursday, 29 September.
Sign up soon to avoid disappointment as these popular tours offer a unique trip down memory lane. The outing includes a visit to the second oldest regiment in the country, an introduction to the Natal Mounted Rifles (NMR) and Stamford Hill’s aerodrome. From there, it’s a short drive down in your own transport to the Old Fort to see Warriors Gate and view the Old Fort chapel.
The famed Old Fort, which was set up when British forces and Durban inhabitants were besieged by the Boers in 1842, commemorates Dick King’s ride to Grahamstown to raise relief. The M.O.T.H. displays showcase exceptional SA memorabilia from World War 1 and 2, the Rhodesian and the South West Africa wars, all set against the backdrop of the exclusive meeting room of the M.O.T.H members – these alone make this tour a must-do!