Kimberley Big Hole Circuit

Kimberley is the city that changed everything — the diamond rush that began in 1871 on Colesberg Koppie drew 30,000 miners, forged De Beers Consolidated Mines, made Cecil John Rhodes’s fortune and empire, created South Africa’s first stock exchange and established the patterns of land, labour and capital that shaped the country’s entire subsequent history. At the centre of all of it is the Big Hole — the largest hand-dug excavation in human history, 215 metres deep with a perimeter of 1.6km, from which 22.5 million tons of earth yielded 2,722 kilograms of diamonds between 1871 and 1914.

Cycling the Diamond Fields

Kimberley is not a mountain biking destination in the conventional sense — the Diamond Fields are flat Karoo terrain, and the riding is on tar and gravel urban roads through one of South Africa’s most historically dense cities. But the 25km Big Hole Heritage Circuit is one of the most culturally compelling cycling routes in the country, linking the Big Hole viewpoint, the Victorian diamond-rush architecture of the CBD, Sol Plaatje University (named for the first Secretary General of the ANC and one of South Africa’s greatest writers), the Oppenheimer Gardens, the McGregor Museum and the Sieges of Kimberley exhibition in a single accessible loop.

For riders wanting more distance, the 40km gravel road along the Vaal River to Barkly West offers flat, accessible terrain past the active and historical alluvial diamond diggings that first triggered the rush — the oldest diamond-mining area in South Africa and still active today.

Getting There

Kimberley is served by domestic flights from Cape Town (1h45) and Johannesburg (1h). By road: N12 from Johannesburg (480km) or Cape Town (960km). GPS for Big Hole Museum: -28.7281, 24.7499. Kimberley Tourism: +27 53 830 4117.

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