Johannesburg · ZA

Gold Reef City Theme Park

Gold Reef City Theme Park is Johannesburg's answer to the question most theme parks around the world never think to ask: what if you could ride a roller coaster while standing on top of an abandoned gold mine? Built in 1987 on a shaft that closed in 1971, this 45-acre park in the suburb of Ormonde wraps six roller coasters, a trampoline park, 12 restaurants, and South Africa's only authentic underground mine tour inside the architecture of the 1886 Witwatersrand gold rush. The effect is genuinely distinctive — Victorian mining houses from the early twentieth century sit between the ride platforms, a Class 19D steam locomotive chugs on a short track near the entrance, and you can watch molten gold being poured into a cast just a few metres from where your kids are screaming into a river rapids boat. South Africa's largest theme park, voted one of Johannesburg's most loved entertainment destinations, Gold Reef City manages to be both a legitimate thrill-park for adrenaline junkies and a surprisingly thoughtful museum of mining history in the same footprint. Whether you want to drop 6.3 g straight down a mineshaft on the Tower of Terror or spend an unhurried afternoon in the heritage tour listening to how ore became bullion, the park makes room for you.