Back in 1893 Frank Hibbing found indications of iron deposits here and made plans to mine the iron and to build a town here for the mine workers. The mining operations proved lucrative and Hibbing underwrote much of the state of the art infrastructure and encouraged community building in this multiethnic largely immigrant place. Residents of the town we engaged in the extremely successful iron mining operations. Then in the 1910’s it became evident that the iron deposits underneath the town were of significant value. The company paid the residents to move their homes and businesses just a couple of miles south to the current location of the town. Today we visited the overlook and watched operations of the Hull-Rust-Mahoning, the world’s largest open pit iron mine and wandered around the abandoned sidewalks of what is left of the former town of Hibbing.
Queen Mary 2’s arrival in the Port of Dakar, Senegal was heralded in the local press and greeted with ceremony. Our own excursion took us on a coach journey through the streets of the capital city to visit a Wolof village and the shore of Lake Retba, the salty lake famed for an intense pink color.
Today’s safari adventure transported us out into the Dorob National Park to have up close encounters with little creatures that are well adapted to the extreme heat and lack of water in the Namib Desert.
With a UNESCO World Heritage Site, two national parks, dozens of museums, and hundreds of tours offered in the Cape Town area there is more than plenty to do. For our two day visit we opted to concentrate on African wildlife visiting the Aquila Private Game Reserve and the Boulders Beach Penguin Colony for a wonderful chance to these fabulous animals in their own habitat.
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