Barkly West travel guide

The R31 passes through Barkly West, 32 km from Kimberley en route to Kuruman. The first site of the diamond rush in South Africa, the town is named after Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of the Cape when diamonds were discovered here. This is also the town Cecil Rhodes represented when he was first elected to the Cape parliament.

Today, the town is tatty and run down, and you may still see prospectors using manual methods to work their claims along the Vaal River. In 1869, the first diamond-digging area, known as Klipdrift, drew thousands of prospectors to the river. The following year the diggers at Canteen Kopje took the unexpected step of establishing the independent Republic of Klipdrift. In 1871 the Cape government decided to annex the territory to keep it out of the hands of the Transvaal government. On the north bank of the Vaal River is the steel-girdered Barkly Bridge, which was the first bridge to span the river in 1885.