On the road via big hole

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After 4 hours sleep, time to pack and move on. We have a lot of road to cover for the next game. I force Hawkins to drive this stretch, his first drive further than the shops... We use the sat nav the whole way so it's a piece of cake, until I suggest we visit the Big Hole for some culture for the day, he fails that part so we need the sat nav again, not sure how he went so wrong the sign posts were pretty simple.

The Big Hole is exactly that, a large man dug hole from the diamond mining era.
The museum has recently been renovated so is a great experience. Outside it has been modelled on an old diamond mining village, 20s style shops and vehicles. Inside there is a 20min video explaining the history of diamond mining and the beginning of the De Beers company. The vault holds many types, cuts and colours of diamonds, the museum staff are determined that you get the most out of the museum so they rush us there before it closes at 5, we can see the rest in reverse order. The rest of the museum is full of information and a great chronology of world events intertwined with diamond news. Finally we see the big hole and then go down a level for the mining experience... The lift has whirring and drilling noises piped in so you feel like you are descending into the depths of a mine, then the lift opens into a mine tunnel. There are Indiana Jones style carts and boxes saying 'beware explosives', all quite eeiry, but when we find the exit we discover than we are only one level below where we entered the lift and are in a room tacked onto the side of the museum, sneaky!
The mining village has a working pub so we watch the second half of the Serbia/Ghana match, I could point out that they didn't have TVs then but that's to my disadvantage so I keep quiet. The centre has an adjoining campsite so that saves hunting around town for one. We pop to the George and Dragon for a pub dinner, then due to the chaos of the previous night have to sleep early, at least this camp site has hot showers!

Kimberley to Worcester, 750 km sav nav says 10.5hrs driving. Ha! I am driving today so can easily knock an hour off of that estimate. Yesterday Hawkins took longer than the sat nav, no comment....

This is another simple drive, main roads and motorways. Changing scenery again, could be a Nevada plain. This route has many road works so that slows the journey down. None of the solar powered traffic lights are working, probably due to the dull/rainy weather, but not to fear the South Africans have an ingenious method of controlling the traffic. The last car in each direction takes a bottle, then at the other end, once the bottle is returned the traffic controllers know it's the other direction's turn. Brilliant! Also these are not small pieces of road being worked on, the single lane controlled section is often 5km+. The weather worsens and the rain gets heavier for the last few hours of the drive. Then all of a sudden we notice the mountains around us have white caps, it's not rain anymore it's sleet! Lucky we have the van and not a tent!! The campsite for tonight, if that is what you can call it, is also in a national park, but facilities do not match those of the Rustenburg camp. There is one toilet block, which seems to have been neglected for some time, the toilets have clearly not been cleaned for weeks!! The only other people there seem to be some local labourers who may even live there permanently. With the dire facilities, a dodgy camping gas bottle and the rain, we decide to go to town for dinner. Spur's steak and Robin Hood at the cinema, that livens up a slow day.

Hawkin's quotes of the journey (my responses tried to be spoken as casual as possible...):

(Regarding the campervan side window)
SH: This window seems to have a draft along the top.
Me: That is because it is open.

(Regarding the campervan boot light)
SH: Oh, the light has spontaneously started working then?
Me: No, I turned it on with the switch.

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