“Great, ANOTHER fossil site” I thought, as I planned my trip through ZA and mapped the WHS on my itinerary. This is one is so easy to access just at the outskirts of Joburg, within an hour from the airport (traffic sucked a little on that day, or any day?). There are tours every half an hour and I recommend arriving 20min before to use the toilet and go through the exhibition area before descending into the Sterkfontein cave. I hate to say this but the exhibition room is the best thing to see on this site. Fossils of early man found in the cave below and explanations of how homo sapien has evolved. A rather simple science lesson and nothing I hadn't been explained at all the other early man sites.

Once you are in the cave, after a brief explanation of a sun dial outside, the tour has really little to do with that anymore. A group of science students does come here once in a month to dig for more fossils but nothing has been found in years. Instead, you get more explanation about limestone and stalactites and mining operations. Interesting is that the remains of Mrs Little actually later were found to be of a young boy and the early sexist scientists just assumed that a small brain must belong to a woman!

Another interesting fact is that the rest of the site is on private land. When I asked if there are attempts to gain the land for science purposes the rest of the group turned the conversation into a rant about how the land is probably owned by Whites and bla bla bla, suddenly the tour went on another half an hour.

Once this is finally done you can go outside and take a look at top of the cave where they excavated more fossils. Nothing to see bur rocks overgrown with grass.