JOHANNESBURG - It is summertime once more in Johannesburg. The rains are back and doing their best to wash away one of the more glaring legacies of 350 years of colonialism and apartheid, namely the road system.
This is the start then of the Johannesburg Pothole season. Potholes generally hibernate during the dry winter months before poking their noses out in November following the first summer rains.
The best month for spotting these creatures is in early January, following the December rains and the long vacation. Once the middle classes return from their vacations in pothole free Western Cape there is usually a reactionary clamour for the Johannesburg municipality to ‘do something' about them.
There follows something of a battle as the City sort-of-tries to cover potholes with sand until there is some dry weather and they can be semi-permanently tarred over, and the rains do their best to wash it away before they can.
As is fitting for a World Class African city Johannesburg has some World Class potholes. It is these that attract the big game Pothole hunters, otherwise known as Tenderpreneurs. This is lucrative business as the City hires them to track down and fill the larger and more dangerous type of Pothole.
Fortunately for the Johannesburg Pothole aficionado these repairs generally do not prove fatal. There would eventually be little work left for our Tenderpreneurial classes if such repairs accidentally proved permanent. Such Potholes generally stay buried for a while before shaking off the dust and re-emerging in all their resplendent glory.
Below are a few pictures of a particularly fine example of a Johannesburg Pothole taken in Kernick Avenue Melrose North. This pothole is all the more impressive for having grown to such a size so early in the season.
As can be seen from the photographs it has some scars left by a previous ‘repair' job by the municipality.
The Pothole from afar (note how some officious busy body has tried to warn passing motorists of its presence):
From close up (mouth wide open waiting to swallow up a careless cyclist, or small car):
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