Seeing as most of the family hasn’t been to Kimberley before, we decided to add in a night in the Diamond capitol of South Africa so that we can go on a sightseeing tour at the Big Hole. We’ve heard a lot about diamonds in the southern parts of Namibia so we were curious to find out a bit more about it from the South African perspective.
| Happy Campers Namibia 2017 – Travel log Day 15 & 16 | |
| Place | Sundowner Lodge, Kimberley, Northern Cape, SA |
| Type of lodging | B&B |
| Ablutions | En-suite |
| Powered | Yes |
| Water at site | Yes |
| Kilometers travelled | 523 km |
| Diesel top-up | 74.14lt – R1000-00 |
We left Augrabies quite early on the morning of day 15, and made our way to Upington via the N14. No visit to the Kakamas area would be complete without a shopping expedition at Die Pienk Padstal so we pulled over to stock up on some of their traditional South African snacks. The road between Kakamas and Upington is one of my favorites in South Africa as it is very picturesque with the vineyards and the mountains that frame it. By the time we reached Upington everyone was ready for a proper breakfast so we pulled over at the Wimpy in the main road in town and got our Wimpy coffee fix. Our route to Kimberley would be via the N8 from Upington, traveling past Griekwastad and Campbell. It was a lovely and scenic route with the odd kudu next to the road every now and then. We got to Kimberley by 15:00 in the afternoon and we went straight ahead to the guest house where we were staying at – the Sundowner Lodge.
It’s a beautiful lodge in the middle of the city and it close to the major shopping center’s and very central to all the sights in Kimberley. Needless to say we were very tired after a long day of traveling so after we got pizza for dinner, it was time for bed (our first night sleeping in a bed since leaving Van Zylsrus on day 2). The next morning we enjoyed an awesome breakfast and we set off to join the early morning tour at the Big Hole. Our guide was highly knowledgeable about Kimberley and its history and we really enjoyed the “underground” tour and experiencing what it would have been like working in the diamond mines during those turbulent days.
After we completed the tour is was time to get back onto the N12 and head on home to Vanderbijlpark, which we reached by 16:00 on the afternoon of day 16. It was an awesome holiday and it’s highly recommended for anyone who wants to inject some adventure into their road trips.
Our vital stats for the entire trip were as follows:
| Total kilometers traveled | 4606 km |
| Diesel used | 536.16 lt |
| Diesel rand value | R6,628-00 |
| Lt/100km | 11.64 |
| R/100km | R143.90 |
Now it’s time to get on with the research and planning for our 2018 holiday to Northern Namibia and the Caprivi strip….. #BotsNam2018
