The Super Pit does not have tours but there are a couple of “overlooks” that give good views; indeed, passengers on the Indian-Pacific train may be offered a tour when the service stops in Kalgoorlie.CAN I GO UNDERGROUND? South Dakota’s Black Hills are riddled with 19th-century precious metal mines. Tours of Deadwood’s Broken Boot Gold Mine (001 605 578 1876; www.brokenbootgoldmine ) take you deep underground; .every half-hour between mid-May and mid-September daily from 8.30am-5.30pm, $5 (£2.90).You need not leave the UK to search for gold; Dolaucothi Gold Mines in Carmarthenshire (01558 825146; www.nationaltrust .uk) date from Roman times. Between 25 March and 29 October, the site opens 10am-4.30pm daily; £7.20 buys admission and an underground tour.Coal proved far more valuable than gold for Welsh industrial history – as you find out at Blaenafon, home of the Big Pit (01495 790311; www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/bigpit). This is still classed as a working colliery, but its main purpose is as the National Museum of Mining. Countless men spent endless days hacking fossil fuel from the bowels of the earth to power Britain’s battleships, locomotives and factories. Their story is told by former miners who guide you 300ft down to the coalface. Open daily 9.30am-5pm (10am-4.30pm in December/January); admission free.I’M HUNGRY Start the day in Battle Creek, Michigan, with a century-old cereal experience.

At Kellogg’s Cereal City (001 269 962 6230; www.kelloggscerealcity ) you can take a production line tour, try a warm sample (tastier than it sounds) and have your picture printed on a cereal box Check for opening hours; admission $7.95 (£4.70). To reach Battle Creek, fly to Detroit, for example on Northwest Airlines (08705 074074; www.nwa ), and continue on the same airline to Burlington, close to the Waterbury, Vermont home of Ben & Jerry’s (001 802 882 1240; www.benjerry ). Daily half-hour factory tours cost $3 (£1.80), including tastings in the FlavoRoom.If you’re a cheese fan, head for Hawes in North Yorkshire to watch production of Wensleydale (01969 667664; www.wensleydale.co.uk). Tours run 10am-5pm daily (Sunday 10am-4.30pm), admission £2.50; ring ahead as cheese isn’t made daily.To spice it up, Avery Island in Louisiana is where Tabasco sauce ( www.tabasco ) is made. Pay a toll of $1 (60p) to get on to the island and you can tour the factory free, 9am-4pm daily.Monty Python’s Spamalot, the musical hit due in London in October, might mean good news for Austin, Minnesota. It’s known as Spamtown USA, where you can visit the world’s only Spam Museum (001 507 437 5100; www.hormel ); it opens 10am-5pm daily (Sundays from noon, closed Mondays from September to April).For a spoonful of sugar to help the processed meat go down, head west to Kauai in Hawaii, where you can tour a sugar plantation (001 808 335 2824; www.gandrtours-kauai ) Or you could just hop across to Belgium.

In Frasnes-lez-Buissenal you will find a small sugar museum (00 32 69 54 53 26; www.maisondusucre.be): open by advance reservation only, admission €3 (£2.20). Why Belgium? Because the country had no Caribbean colonies, so instead developed a beet sugar industry…. AND THIRSTY Plenty of that sugar is used to brew some of the world’s finest beers – especially the dark Trappist ales. You can visit several in southern Belgium, including Orval (00 32 61 31 12 61; www.orval.be) in Villers-devant-Orval south of Neufchateau. Tours (free) are by appointment Monday-Friday.A short way north in Amsterdam, the Heineken Experience is a much more commercial enterprise.