Christiana

Christiana was established in 1870 on the farm Zoutpansdrift, a government-controlled settlement meant to manage the land disputes erupting along the Vaal River as diamond fever spread west from Kimberley. Two years after the town was founded, diamonds turned up in the gravel beds of the Vaal close by, and the rush followed. The town takes its name from the daughter of President M.W. Pretorius of the old Transvaal. That political act of naming is typical of the colonial frontier towns along this stretch of river, each one a negotiation between Boer republic ambitions, British expansion, and the violence of people fighting over diamonds in the water.

The Diggers' Diamond Museum in town holds authentic digging equipment and photographs from the rush era and is a better record of what actually happened here than most small-town museums manage. The bell referenced in local history, used by diggers to call time on the claims and now submerged in the Vaal after a disaster that drowned several men, is the kind of detail that sticks. Stows Kopje, a few kilometres outside of town, carries prehistoric rock engravings that are a declared provincial heritage site. There are San Bushman rock art examples at the farm Stowlands, 6 km out on the road south.

The Vaal River is still the town's main asset. Fishing, camping, and boating draw visitors from the surrounding area, and Riverbend Camp is the best-known accommodation option for anyone wanting to sit on the bank with a rod. The economy today is agricultural: maize, potatoes, onions, sorghum, groundnuts, and beef. Christiana is one of the corners of the Maize Rectangle, the stretch of highveld that feeds a significant portion of the country's grain supply.

The town is functional and unpretentious. The diamond history gives it more depth than the surface suggests, and the Vaal River provides a reason to stop that goes beyond filling the tank and moving on.