Day 1 : Depart Cape Town
Depart Cape Town station at 11:00 AM. As the Blue train departs, leaving behind the distinctive shape of Table Mountain, we head to the town of Paarl, set in a wide, fertile valley surrounded by purple-hued mountains. Paarl was established in 1720 by French Huguenot settlers and the oak-lined streets are distinguished by beautiful old Cape Dutch buildings. Next we head for the Hex river Valley over the rugged Hex River Mountains. Crossing the Hex River mountain range was a daunting task for surveyors in 1876 who had to plot the course the tracks should follow. The 16,3-kilometer (10.13-mile) Hex River Tunnel system, the fourth longest in the world, is a monument to advanced engineering skills. Imbibe the emerald green Eden of the Hex River Valley, where most of South Africa's export grapes are grown. Late autumn produces one of the world's most extravagant natural sights when the barlinka vines transform into blazing crimson. The Hex River is also famous for one of South Africa's most romantic and ghostly legends about a beautiful young girl, Eliza Meiring who, in 1768, went mad after her beloved fell to his death in the forbidding Matroosberg mountains.
(Overnight Blue Train) - (L,D)

Day 2 : Arrival Pretoria
The journey, from the heart of South Africa's finest winelands up to Pretoria known as the Jacaranda City, covers 1 600 kilometres (994 miles). En-route we scan the desolately beautiful Karoo thirst lands where ancient fossils attest to its history as a primeval swamp, where ostriches run wild, where the skies erupt into dramatic sunsets and from which Olive Schreiner, author of the classic South African novel, Story of an African Farm, drew much of her inspiration. The Blue Train passes on to Kimberley, seat of South Africa's original diamond rush. Kimberley is where Cecil John Rhodes established De Beers, today the biggest diamond mining concern in the world. We then travel though the grain, fruit and sunflower farms of the northern Cape, before reaching the gold fields of the Witwatersrand and finally on to Pretoria, arriving there at 13:45 PM. - (B)
(END OF TOUR)