The N12 route via Kimberley to Cape Town, sometimes called the Diamond Fields route, offers a respectable alternative to the slightly shorter but more hectic N1 route. Kimberley, after all is where South Africa’s Industrial Revolution originated and if memory serves correctly was the first town to install electric streetlights.
Victoria West, situated approximately half way between Gauteng and Cape Town, remains a charming stop over. Most small Karoo towns display imposing churches, usually associated with the Dutch Reformed and Anglican faiths and Victoria West is no exception.
Dutch Reformed Church Victoria West (Wikipedia)
The St John’s Anglican church while less imposing than its Dutch Reformed counterpart nevertheless boasts impeccable credentials having been designed by Sophy Gray, wife of Bishop Robert Gray, the first Anglican Bishop of Cape Town. Bishop Gray and his wife arrived in Cape Town in 1848 with a mission to increase the number of Anglican clergymen in the Cape Colony. Within 25 years Robert Gray was instrumental in the erection of 50 churches of which 40 were designed by Sophy Gray.
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