Our first day in J-burg saw us motor-coaching north to the Cullinan diamond mines near Pretoria where we were hand-printed in security before being given our hard hats. While we didn’t go down any of the company’s mineshafts, our visit to the company “museum” gave us an opportunity to buy the real thing and not so surprisingly none of us did.

     We were then driven to the edge of the company’s Big Dig, a mammoth excavation. Common thought: You obviously have to sift through a large amount of dirt to get the end product. Leaving the mine, we enjoyed an in-town Pretoria lunch and our subsequent city tour, passing the already closed Voortrekker Monument (bottom right) on our return motorcoach trip to Johannesburg. All in all, a most interesting day for all.