Think of Main Reef Road as a river. Unlike most other cities in the world, Johannesburg was not settled beside a large river, lake or sea. People were brought here by a gold rush. They remain because of another kind of rush – or the search for a better life.

Commissioner Street was the first real road to be constructed through the original rough and ready digging community. No less rough and ready today, Main Reef Road extends out from either end, to the east and west. An artery through the the city, it follows the jagged spine of the gold reef. For most though, it has not proven to be the street of gold promised by the city’s name – Egoli.