Friday, May 22, 2009

School Trips, South African Style

Emma got to go on a school trip to the Premier Diamond Mine in Cullinan. If you're not up on your diamond history, the diamond mine in Cullinan is famous for producing the Cullinan Diamond, the largest rough gem-quality diamond ever found, weighing in at 3,106 carats. It was later cut into nine smaller diamonds, two of which are in the Crown Jewels in England:

The Cullinan I, The Great Star of Africa, weighs 530 carats and is mounted in the Sceptre with the Cross. The Cullinan II, The Lesser Star of Africa, weighs 317 carats and is on the front of the Imperial State Crown of Great Britain.

When I was in school, my school outings usually involved exploring dusty old forts or museums depicting the Gold Rush in California. It wasn't the sort of thing that made history come alive; it was the sort of thing that made you sneeze as you brushed cobwebs off your face.

I want to be a kid again - the school trips here are cool (and I bet diamond mine trips don't make you sneeze)!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

My favourite school trips were always to factories - watching cane sugar get turned into Golden Syurp at Illovo, visiting an old Indian shoe factory in Pietermaritzburg, or seeing how NikNaks are made at Simba.

I wanted to be a factory worker for years after that!

Anonymous said...

School and schooltrips in SA are always fun! I was 13 when we went on a trip (by train!) from the country side to the city...with our teachers..for a week to Pretoria! Great fun! on the train and in the city. here in London, kids don;t have such fun in schools like in our schools, I can just say (as a teacher) poor kids!