NAMIBIA

In May each year this 3 400-kilometre seven-day journey takes the train from Pretoria to Kimberley, centre of one of the world's most famous diamond rushes, where there's an opportunity to visit the Big Hole, the world's largest man-made excavation, and to savour the 1870s atmosphere of the mine museum village.

The railway line covers the stark vistas of the arid Northern Cape as the train travels through Upington to the border and into Namibia. There is time for an excursion to the Fish River Canyon - second only in size to the Grand Canyon and a truly spectacular sight. The journey continues across the untamed beauty of the Kalahari Desert and onto Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. After a short city tour and an afternoon game drive, the train continues onto Tsumeb for an overnight stay at Mokuti Game Lodge in the Etosha National Park. On the last morning the train passes along the German built railway through the Namib Desert and into Swakopmund, a perfectly preserved 19th-century German Hansa town set on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.