DOWN THE N12
This year I’m going via Kimberley. Normally, I would start a bit later and dawdle to the city of diamonds, only because drinks and dinner at the Kimberley Club (kimberleyclub.co.za) is one of life’s great experiences. The wood-panelled dining room — and the springbok springrolls — are otherworldly. Get there early enough and you can also visit the superb museum, set in the original mining village at the Big Hole (thebighole.co.za), and ride a restored tramcar on the first and only surviving electric tramway in Southern Africa.
If it’s too early to stop for the night, keep going south and take the detour at Modderrivier to the Magersfontein battlefield, where Boer fighters, dugin at the foot of a range of koppies, poured rifle fire into the ranks of the Highland Brigade on a scorching day in December 1899. The visitor centre has excellent displays of pictures, maps, dioramas and artefacts, including a Krupp field gun, but the main attraction is a moving and spooky audiovisual presentation in a reconstructed trench, in front of which the battle plays out in photos and the sounds of soldiers’ voices, booming gunfire, rain and neighing horses.
SOUTH ON THE DIAMOND WAY From here, the road runs alongside the “Steel Kyalami”, the railway between Kimberley and De Aar on which enginemen in the days of steam would wind up their iron horses to sometimes terrifying velocities.
At Hopetown, the Orange River flashes underneath. Next stop Britstown, a classic Karoo dorpie where the old hotel has been revamped as the Trans Karoo Country Lodge (transkaroocountryodge.co.za). Britstown is midway and a great place to spend the night, but if you’re coming from Kimberley, stop here for an early breakfast.
The other, almost-midway staging post is Victoria West, founded in 1843 and named after Queen Victoria. The town used to hold an annual film festival at the Apollo Theatre, its glorious art-deco cinema. The festival is no more and the last time I was there the cinema was home to a local government agency. But it’s a pretty town in which to cool your heels. Check out The Trading Post and the Mannetjies Roux Museum, full of memorabilia devoted to the Springbok back, who used to farm nearby.
INTO THE DEEP KAROO Not long after Victoria West, the Three Sisters beckon. The village is little more than a railway station and a vast garage, with guesthouses dotting the surrounding area. I have heard many reports of a man named Jan Hamman, who apparently has a huge model railway in the attic of his old farmhouse. I plan to stop here on the way to see if it’s true.
One story that is probably not true is the one about the ghost that haunts the platform at nearby Travalia siding. Leon Nell, in his book