Few things inspire panic in a Northern suburbs woman quite like a shopping emergency. With just two weeks to go before hopping on plane to play bridesmaid in Cambridge I got call from the bride-to-be casually saying that she’s decided it best her entourage pick their own dresses for the nuptials. The advantage? I get to avoid looking like the victim of a cupcake explosion. The freak-out? Shopping under pressure is not for the faint-hearted.
After activating the fashion emergency phone tree (most stylish friend, bargain-savvy mother in law and a handful of people who should put ‘professional bridesmaid’ on their CV) I had a plan of action. My mother and I were going to venture out of Jozi, beyond the familiar cobbled streets of Melrose Arch and the freshly revamped corridors of Sandton City, we were going to flex our shopping muscles in Pretoria – and we were going to do it via Gautrain...
Public transport
Public transport
We arrived at the Sandton station, wearing our comfiest heels and stocking up on every train timetable, bus schedule and pamphlet that looked like it might be important. Gold cards charged we descended down and down and down some more, like Alice down the rabbit hole, to board our train to Hatfield station.
Taking a trip on the Gautrain always makes me a bit emotional. I’m just so proud. For the thirty or so minutes it took to reach our destination I could have been anywhere – London, Paris, Rome… It really is a first world experience. My mom and I skipped off the train and floated up to the surface on a cloud of optimism, ready to conquer the bus timetable and embrace public transport in the pursuit of unfamiliar retail territory.
Platform hopping
Sadly, our bubble was burst by an eight-letter line of fine print that we’d failed to see and staff at the Sandton station had failed to point out – no bus service on weekends and public holidays. We popped out of the station and into a shopping void, kilometers from anywhere that posed even a glimmer of changing room hope.
Long story short, we re-grouped, revised our plan of attack, did a U-turn and settled on Rosebank where its new Piazza didn’t disappoint.
A pretty perfect Piazza
From a much-needed re-fuel and wine o’ clock pitstop at Piza e Vino, to the ‘can we offer you a glass of champagne’ welcome at heart-skippingly pretty Forever New, this Sandtonista was very impressed. Strolling back to the train station, the perfect mint green silk dress in the bag, I turned to my shopping accomplice and said: “We had to trek all the way to Pretoria to realise there really is no place like home. That’ll teach us to leave the mothership.”
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