Kimberley Packages/Deals & Travel Agents Near Me

Located 550 mi/880 km east of Vancouver, Kimberley, British Columbia, is a Canadian Rockies and ski-resort town with an intentionally Bavarian flavor. The downtown contains a Platzl (plaza) with Bavarian bakeries and restaurants, and it's home to what's said to be the world's largest cuckoo clock.

Other attractions include Cominco Gardens, a heritage museum, the Bavarian City Mining Railway and chair-lift rides to the summit of North Star Mountain. To the northeast, Top of the World Provincial Park is a lovely alpine landscape with great trout fishing in Fish Lake and lots of wildflowers in the spring.

The center of the 19th-century diamond rush that made millionaires of Cecil John Rhodes and Barney Barnato, Kimberley, South Africa, is most famous today for its Big Hole. The Hole ranks as one of the world's three largest man-made excavations, having produced more than 14.5 million carats of diamonds in its working life.

Allow at least two hours to see the Big Hole and the adjacent Mine Museum, with its examples of rough and finished diamonds and original mining-town buildings (the museum displays a rock that even Liz Taylor would envy: a 616-carat uncut diamond).

If time permits, visit the McGregor Museum for its excellent natural-history exhibits and San artifacts. Kimberley lies 505 mi/815 km northeast of Cape Town.

Set at the northern end of Western Australia about 400 mi/650 km southwest of Darwin, the Kimberley is an isolated region considered by many as one of the world's last frontiers. Covering more than 261,000 sq mi/420,000 sq km, the area has raging rivers and tropical forests, pristine beaches and rugged coastlines, as well as desert ranges and Outback cattle stations.

Experienced adventure travelers can explore the rugged northwestern coast from Broome, where pearling is still the leading industry. You'll need a four-wheel-drive vehicle to reach the Windjana Gorge National Park (multicolored cliffs and crocodiles) and the more remote Geikie Gorge National Park (cliffs, birds and animals). Derby, a port town on King Sound, is considered the gateway to the gorges.

Farther east, past Halls Creek, is the Purnululu National Park, one of the country's most amazing natural wonders—some say it rivals Uluru (or will, once they figure out how to get tour buses there). Purnululu is the name given to the sandstone area of the Bungle Bungle Range (known as the Bungle Bungles) by the Kija Aboriginal people. It includes tiger-striped rock formations and thousands of rounded peaks resembling beehives, which spout waterfalls during the rainy season.

Traveling north takes you past spectacular peaks and into the town of Kununurra, where you can take a cruise on either Lake Argyle or Lake Kununurra and visit the Argyle Diamond Mine. Be aware that much of the Kimberley is inaccessible by land during the wet season in December.