Fifteen minutes of fame

Saturday 20th September

Woodridge Palms, Near Rustenburg

Valley of the Waves, Sun City

When entrepreneur Sol Kerzner started building Sun City in the 1970s it was located in Bophuthatswana, a politically self-governing area during the apartheid regime.  The great attraction of "the Bop" was that, being semi-independent from South Africa, it was the only place where gambling was legal as well as being somewhere not subject to apartheid boycotts, meaning western pop stars were happy to perform there.

Kerzner built a huge complex of casinos and concert venues, and together with the discovery of platinum, made the area very wealthy.

Since then, gambling has become legal elsewhere, apartheid has ended and Bophuthatswana has become part of South Africa's North West Province, leaving Sun City with a bit of an identity crisis.

That was what we discovered there today.  All but one of the casinos has been replaced by timeshares, golf courses and a variety of leisure attractions, the most impressive of which is the 'Valley of the Waves' - an artificial beach with 2m high breaker waves built in what is predominantly a desert.

While it made for an incredibly fun day out, there was a striking disconnect between the excess of Sun City and the poverty that surrounds it, and between the drought engulfing the province and the quantity of water being pumped into the folly of a beach in the desert.

More odd was the reception we received there.  On arrival at Sun City, visitors have to take a monorail to the complex.  While waiting, a man came up and asked to have his photo taken with me, and then with our whole family.  Pretty soon, a whole group (who turned out to be a group of social workers on a day out) had formed a queue to shake our hands and have their photos taken with us.

All in all, it took around 15 minutes to pose with each of them, leaving us wondering if it was because we were so milk-bottle white, if it was a bet or if they had mistaken us for someone else.

Whatever the case, it feels like that's my fifteen minutes of fame used up.