Ghost Trail
On Friday night I went on the Ghost Trail, a guided tour of some of Kimberley’s oldest and supposedly ‘psychically active’ buildings. The tour was led by a English man, with a Phd in Mechanical Engineering, who had some very pseudoscientific theories about the paranormal, which he’s been devleloping for 30 years. It started out with a glass of sherry in the old de Beers mining company boardroom. From there we took in several of Kimberley’s historic (and ‘haunted’) sights, including the Africana Library, Rudd House, the Kimberley Club, the Honoured Dead Memorial and, of course, Frankestein’s Grave. It was more a historial tour by night than anything else, but it was fun, and possibly the best way to spend a Friday night in Kimberley.
I spent Saturday being a lazy bum, although I did go for a walk in town to get my bearings, I think I know my way around now.
Kimberley Mine Museum
On Sunday, I went to the Kimberley Mine Museum, an open air reconstruction of a mining town at the beginning of the last century. They’ve acheived this partly by moving authentic building to the site and partly by building new buildings in the style of the old ones. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of construction going on as they are finishing up a major refurbishment and building programme, but it was still a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
The Museum has the best view over the ‘Big Hole’ – the largest / deepest hold in the world dug entirely by manual labour. I’ve gotten some great pics of it which I’ll upload when I have a chance. I’m not sure if pictures can accurately capture the scale of the view, it was really something.
Then, to round the weekend off, I went to see Superman Returns on what is probably the smallest movie screen I’ve ever seen 