On The Train

Back in South Africa now, we did a quick overnight in Joberg before driving up to Pretoria to catch the Pride of Africa, a luxury train that will take us on a two day journey across the country to Cape Town.


The only drawback is that one can't help feeling like dirt when you're on the third course of your meal and the train happens to go through an area that features shanty towns as far as the eye can see.

The main stop along the way is a city called Kimberly, where diamonds were first discovered in South Africa and birthplace of the De Beers diamond company. We disembarked the train to see Kimberly's claim to fame, "The Big Hole". We can now say that we are among the elite few who have seen the largest man-made hole in the world. Jealous? Yeah, you're jealous.


Outside the hole they also had a diamond museum and a recreation of how the mining town would have appeared during the boom times, allowing you to experience what it felt like to be completely bored during the 1800s.


The next morning we had the option of disembarking the train and walking the last 5km into a local village to work up an appetite for breakfast. Even by 8AM, the desert was hot enough that we were so hot and sweaty by the time we got into town that we skipped the sightseeing and just went straight back onto the train.


By tonight we should be in Cape Town for the last leg of our trip.