Monday 15th August 2016: breakfast at 6.00 to be ready for 6.45 pickup with about 18 others who are also going on the Blue Train. The original train was built in 1923, and was replaced by 2 luxurious trains in 1997 & 1998. They are 396m long and take 27 hours to make the 1600km journey south to Cape Town, travelling through Johannesburg, Kimberley, the historic diamond rush town, the Karoo Desert, the vineyards of the Hex River Valley, the purple mountains and Table Top Mountain. South of Pretoria the train passes through gold mining regions which are one of the most concentrated gold mining operations in the world. Nearly all houses have a metal spiked front fence or razor wire - good industries to be in I imagine.

The view from the train as we depart Pretoria is very typical of all railway lines around the world, probably the worst advertisement for a town, so much rubbish and industrial backyards. The same can be said for Johannesburg which is a huge city and has the worst slums or shanty towns on it's outskirts, particularly in Soweto. There always seems to be people wandering along the railway line. In a few places there was evidence of where they were replacing these shanty towns with very small close knit little hut style dwellings. There is what appears to be a dust haze right around the horizon. 


We finally get away from unattractive little towns and into flat open countryside, mostly unfenced, the cattle seem to keep away from the line and lots of cropping land (maize) for miles on each side of the line. I find it disappointing that there is no commentary to tell you what we are passing, I presume the farmers are white South Africans, even though we have not really seen a white person since we got here, except for the couple who gave us the warning yesterday. The population of South Africa is 55m with less than 10% being white. 


Lunch on the train is silver service, 4 course with the works, finishing at 2.15 and high afternoon tea is between 3.30 and 5 - how much food can one consume - our dinner time is 9.15 if we aren't asleep by then having had a wine with lunch.

At 5.00 we were meant to have an excursion at the historic town of Kimberley, but because we were well behind schedule for various reasons it was cancelled - very disappointing as it was the largest and most productive mine in the world and worked for almost a century, closing in 1914 after 2.7 tonnes of diamonds had been extracted from the 'big hole'. De Beers Consolidated Mines was and still is the big name in diamonds over here. 


Dinner was exceptional, we tried springbok which certainly didn't disappoint and on returning to our room it had been transformed into a bedroom with a box of chocolates on the pillow.
Morning finds us in the Karoo Desert, not completely barren, Dorper & Damara sheep managing to find something to eat. The country changes from flat to hills to mountains - we go through a 30km tunnel and come out in the fertile Hex Valley with dams and miles of vineyards, pruned and ready to prune - green grass everywhere now, fruit trees and then into cropping country - the season here on the west coast is on a par with ours with crops at the same stage and wildflowers along the sides of the track.
 



































  A 'light' lunch of 3 courses provided as we aren't getting to Cape Town until 3pm now - a 30 hour journey. About half an hour out there is another huge shanty town made of everything imaginable, bricks, tyres etc to hold the roofs on and to their credit there is an area that has been upgraded to very small, close houses. We are met at the station by Scenic and transported to the Radisson - 5 have just done the Blue Train at the end of their Scenic Tour, the rest of us about to start.