Jaunted

It's Summer Somewhere: Really Big Holes in South Africa

1/15/2008 at 9:30 AM
Tags: It's Summer Somewhere, It's-Summer-Somewhere, South Africa Travel, Big Things (all tags)

It's summer right now in South Africa and the tourists are flooding into pretty Cape Town for their summer fun. Folks are heading into the city by car at the rate of 200 cars per hour--yep, somebody measures that--though nobody can tell us how many are flying into Cape Town International.

There are plenty of attractions to keep you busy in the South African city, but we also recommend taking a trip a little further north into the Northern Cape province. The statisticians tell us that 1,000 visitors per day are headed to the Northern Cape's Big Hole and a place with a name like that sounds like something we shouldn't miss. (We love big things, you know.)

The Big Hole is actually a former diamond mine near Kimberley, the capital of the Northern Cape. It took 50,000 workers almost 50 years to dig it, and these days they're trying to get it listed as a World Heritage site. If you visit, you probably won't find any stray diamonds lying around, but the Big Hole and the related museums are spectacle enough, surely.

Related Stories:
· Tourists Flock to the Cape [SABC News]
· It's Summer Somewhere coverage [Jaunted]
· South Africa Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Wikipedia]