Kimberley (Northern Cape)

At the western side of the Big Hole is the Open Mine Museum. Consisting of original and carefully reconstructed buildings this museum has preserved a great deal of the city's past. The Eureka, the first recorded diamond discovered in South Africa, can be viewed at the museum. Have some fun sifting through diamond bearing gravel, looking for your own diamond. Experience a diamond mining operation, complete with blastings! Play skittles in the old bowling alley, or stroll through the old buildings which have been reconstructed here at the museum. The Occidental Bar & Restaurant is on site.

Constructed in 1897 by De Beers as a sanatorium, the building has served as a luxury hotel (Hotel Belgrave) and later as a convent school. The museum provides research and advice to a wide range of community projects throughout the Northern Cape.

The museum will cover the history of the city.

One of the most important galleries in the country, the WHAG houses a collection of traditional and contemporary South African graphics, sculptures and paintings. It hosts many special exhibitions from time to time.

On the site is a small office and restaurant as well as restrooms. Scattered around is look-out sites and information signs, guiding the visitor. The whole area is fenced in and there is a small fee to enter the compound. You need a car, sunscreen and plenty of water - distances can be long, and you will need to walk to some of the monuments. For some of the smaller roads in the area a 4x4 vehicle can be helpful.

Exhibits indigenous cultures and lifestyles in some 8,000 photographs taken by Irishman AM Duggan Cronin, between 1919 and 1939, are just some of the invaluable ethnographic collection.

This memorial commemorates those who lost their lives defending Kimberley during the 124 day siege at the start of the 1899 - 1902 Anglo Boer War. "Long Cecil", the gun named after Rhodes and built in the De Beers Workshops during the siege, stands on the stylobate of the monument.

Erected in honour of diggers past and present. This fountain you will find in the Ernest Oppenheimer Gardens. The gardens are a memorial to the late Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, a mining magnate. He was the first mayor of Kimberley when Beaconsfield and Kimberley were combined into a city in 1912.