Cullinan Diamond Mine and Tour (Cullinan)
Cullinan Big Hole
Overview of the Cullinan Diamond Mine
The diamond mining town of Cullinan was founded soon after a diamond mine was established in the area in 1903. The diamond mine, now owned by Petra Diamonds, is renowned for being one of the most celebrated mines of its kind in the world.
It was in Cullinan that the world's biggest gem diamond, the Cullinan Diamond was discovered in 1905. The Cullinan Diamond weighed in at a staggering 3,106 carats. Ever since then, Cullinan has been known as the place to go if you want some of the best natural diamonds the world has to offer.
You can read more about the Cullinan Diamond by clicking here.The Cullinan Diamond Mine offers various tours to visitors. The most popular of the tours is the surface tour, where tourists have the opportunity to enjoy just about every part of the mine history, and have a look at the Cullinan Big Hole. The tour guides are very knowledgeable about the history and current operations of the mine, and gives visitors a informative behind-the-scenes account of the mine and its history.
An underground tour is also available, and must be booked in advance.
Review of the Cullinan Diamond Mine
The Cullinan Diamond Mine tour makes for a delightful part of any day trip to Cullinan. The surface tour is quite informative, and looking down over the 32 ha Cullinan Big Hole is can be quite daunting!
An introductory DVD showing started off the tour, and although it focuses more on Petra Diamonds and their involvement in the community, it does provide some valuable information about the mine and diamonds in general.
The tour is a surface walking tour and lasts about an hour, but don't let that scare you! The tour guide stopped at regular intervals to give us information and little facts about the sights as we passed them.
Our tour ended with the opportunity to browse through one of the mine's jewellery shops.
Here you can view, and if you can afford it, buy beautiful diamonds from relatively small carats up to a whopping five carats.
They say "diamonds are a girls best friend", and this tour definitely made a lot of girls' eyes sparkle.