#Parks

There is a big park in Johannesburg, very near to the city center, called the Wilds. For many years I didn’t go there because everyone said it was dangerous. Even the name – the Wilds, bwahahahaaaaa – has a menacing tone to it. I assumed the warnings were legit.

A couple of months ago I posted about the “Three Days in Johannesburg” travel guide that I wrote for TripAdvisor. I also wrote a “Johannesburg Off the Beaten Path” guide, which I’m going to summarize for you here. (Check out my full Off the Beaten Path guide on TripAdvisor, which includes longer descriptions and tips for each location.)

This week, while poking around the Illovo/Melrose area for my SandtonPlaces research, I wandered into James and Ethel Gray Park: a city park just off the M1 highway in the small suburb of Birdhaven.

My grandmother, Frances Mason (aka Cooncie), loved visiting cemeteries. When I was a kid, Cooncie was always nagging me to come with her to visit our family cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. I brushed her off. To 12-year-old Heather, nothing sounded more boring than walking with Cooncie around some stupid old cemetery. I was busy with important things like playing softball, shopping at the Limited, and chasing boys.