A bespoke guide to South Africa

South Africa

Bespoke Guide B e a u

Tr a v e l

M a g a z i n e

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E

South Africa

Beau Travel Magazine

ver since I was a small boy, watching David Attenborough on a black-andwhite TV, I’ve wanted to travel to Africa and go on safari. It’s been a long wait. Almost 60 years, to be precise, until I finally had both the wherewithal and the perfect excuse — my second honeymoon. That is, my honeymoon with my second wife; not a second honeymoon with the same wife. I’m not that rich. Or romantic, I suppose…

Now I know that for many couples, a second honeymoon is a chance to revisit a muchloved place that holds precious memories, but that wasn’t even an option for Susie and me. As this was a second marriage for both of us, the honeymoon had to meet two criteria — it had to be somewhere neither of us had ever been before with anyone else, and it had to be that elusive thing, “a holiday of a lifetime”.

The search wasn’t easy. There are many other parts of the world to which we have yet to travel, but the country whose name came up time and time again was South Africa.

Everyone we spoke to raved about it. Better still, nobody had gone there just once.

They’d gone back again; and not just once or twice, but usually four or five times. It’s true; Africa really does get under your skin.

In geographical terms South Africa is enormous, so choosing exactly what to do and where to go isn’t easy. Twice the size of Texas, five times the size of the UK, it extends for more than a million square kilometres, from the steamy Limpopo river in the north to the windswept Agulhas peninsula in the south; from the barren Atlantic seaboard of Namaqualand to the humid Indian Ocean beaches of Kwa-Zulu Natal.

As the self-proclaimed “Rainbow Nation”, it’s also incredibly diverse in terms of people, with no fewer than 11 official languages: luckily, English is one of them, which is at least one of the reasons, along with its cosmopolitan cities, world-class wines and its extraordinarily rich fauna and flora that South Africa has become so popular with British visitors. Another reason (let’s be honest about this) is its cost.

In days of yore, when a pound would buy you only three rand, South African holidays were outside the reach of most ordinary mortals, but today with the exchange rate standing at around 17 rand to the pound, a South African holiday offers astonishing value. But as I said, it’s a big place: where do you start?

It would be only too easy to spend a week in and around Cape Town followed by a week wending your way along the Garden Route, and if you have only a fortnight, that might be a good place to start. Luckily, we had a bit longer and our trip took us down some less-travelled roads and to some further-flung places, where we discovered a very different South Africa from the one we thought we knew. I hope that our tale — and the insider tips from some of our local friends — will inspire you to do the same.

Tim Maguire

South Africa

Morrell’s

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Boutique Estate

is not one hotel, but two: the “Manor House” and a “Farmhouse”, both built in the elegant 18th-century Cape Dutch style that offer a stylish refuge from the hustle and bustle of downtown Johannesburg.

The properties straddle a crossroads in Northcliff where, over the past 15 years, former model Bernice Morrell and her husband Mike have created a pair of chic destination hotels out of their passion for Provençal food, flowers, and furniture.

Intimate, welcoming and decidedly feminine, The Manor House and The Farmhouse can each accommodate no more than a dozen or so guests at any time, so in today’s English they are boutique hotels, although the French have a better phrase: they would call them Hotels de Charme.

On our first night, we stayed in the Figaro Suite at The Manor House, a luxuriously appointed garden-facing suite, with a private courtyard that affords the kind of seclusion you want on honeymoon. We loved our elegant bedroom. Replete with all the things the contemporary traveller has come to expect in the way of wi-fi and flat-screen TVs, it had a superbly comfortable super-king-size bed, with dream-inducing pillows, period furniture and floorlength drapes. To one side beckoned a spacious and seductive bathroom complete with corner bath, chaise longue, his’n’hers handbasins and a separate shower. Parfait!

We flew in from Amsterdam on KLM’s lunchtime flight, so it was nearly midnight by the time we reached Morrell’s where we were greeted with a restorative gift of champagne, fresh fruit, French cheeses and succulent rolls of fresh roasted ham, so we went to bed happy and content but it wasn’t really until the following morning, that we really began to appreciate how lucky we were.

When we opened our curtains, golden sunlight streamed over the oak floors, and we made our exit through the French window to be met by our butler who brought us a delicious breakfast of croissants, and passion fruit fresh from the tree. Serenaded by birdsong and stimulated by a glass of Buck’s Fizz, it was the perfect start to a wonderful day in which we did as little as possible.

Poor Johannesburg: it has lots of nicknames, including Jo’burg, Jozi, Joey’s and The City of Gold, but it’s also called “the two-way city” because as its inhabitants ruefully told us,

South Africa

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“

When we opened our curtains, golden sunlight streamed over the oak floors, and we made our exit through the French window to be met by our delicious breakfast of

croissants, and passion

fruit fresh from the tree.

“

butler who brought us a

South Africa

“

“

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If she weren’t an hotelier, Bernice would make a fortune as a Hollywood art director

South Africa

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South Africa people fly in one way and then they fly out another, either up to the Kruger or down to the beaches of Durban in the east or Cape Town in the west. It’s a shame really, because there the city has much to offer, but because it’s one of the world’s top 50 commercial centres and the undisputed economic powerhouse of Africa, Jozi is inevitably seen as a place to work rather than play.

It has its attractions, like the important Market Theatre, famed for its role in the struggle against apartheid, The Museum of Africa with its important collection of rock art, and its fashionable shopping and nightlife areas like Sandton and Melville. Up and coming right now is Maboneng, where a mix of art galleries, bookshops and fashion stores is drawing the chic, arty set back into downtown Johannesburg, but we decided not to venture forth.

Instead, we transferred across the road to The Farmhouse where we checked into one of their seven beautifully decorated en suite bedrooms complete with original wooden floor, wood-burning fireplace, and pressed ceiling.

We whiled away an enjoyable morning lying by the pool, and enjoying a relaxing massage in the hotel’s well-equipped spa before having a spot of al-fresco lunch in the romantic setting of their outdoor bistro, at which the Provençal theme continued, with artichokes for Susie and chilled tomato soup for me, followed by a choice of filet mignon or rack of lamb with a lavender rösti.

Beau Travel Magazine We didn’t know then, but we were soon to realise that for the locals, lunch is the main meal of the day and that South Africans are generous hosts. Either of our main courses would easily have fed us both, and they were a bargain, at less than £10 for each. Our wine was the only thing that struck an obviously local note: Bob’s Your Uncle comes in a cheerily labelled beer bottle, and is none the worse for it. It’s a cheeky bit of design, which gives a clue, because design is really what Morrell’s is all about.

Bernice has a wonderful eye, and both The Manor and The Farmhouse are filled with wonderful antiques and floral displays. The house is full of elegant armoires in faded colours, while outside there are great avenues of gigantic urns full of hydrangeas. Morrell’s is a popular venue for weddings, and I can well imagine brides-to-be falling in love with the idea of being photographed in the extensive formal gardens, full of rare growth roses.

If she weren’t an hotelier, Bernice would make a fortune as a Hollywood art director, and while the theme is French, in its way Morrell’s is also so LA — it’s suburban, but very chic.

Mrs. M loved the colours, all dusky pinks and apricots, and the way the Provençal theme extended to the smallest detail — the Laguiole cutlery, the crockery, the furniture, the porcelain and even the toiletries by L’Occitan.

The attention to detail is total.

Hidden speakers gently waft Bal Accordion music and Edith Piaf songs wherever we go, and as you might expect, the uniformly charming staff are dressed en style français to match. Nothing we asked was too much trouble, including finding the travel adaptors we hadn’t realised we’d need for South Africa’s round (take note, dear reader) three-pin plug electrical system.

Who comes here? Mostly people like us, en route to the Kruger or the Cape, but quite a few smart businessmen choose to base themselves here in this quietly luxurious haven rather than take the conventional option available at any of the many international hotel brands operating downtown in the CBD. For us, Morrell’s was an elegant and welcoming oasis: the perfect start to our honeymoon.

Morrells Boutique Estate www.morrells.co.za E-mail: info@morrells.co.za Tel: +27 (0) 11 476 9495 Corner of Weltevreden Rd & Scott St, Northcliff, Johannesburg

Africa

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on Foot

A

s you look down from the plane that flies every lunchtime from Johannesburg to Hoedespruit on the eastern edge of The Kruger, the bush stretches unbroken as far as the eye can see, a great, khaki expanse of scrub and savannah that continues far beyond the hazy horizon. At 45 minutes it’s not a long flight, but when you disembark at the tiny Eastgate Airport, you already feel a very long way away from the world of cities and their everyday concerns.

The first thing you’ll notice as you approach the terminal building is the dozen or so greeting boards from the various safari companies that operate in the area. The second is the group of tanned, rugged individuals there to meet you. They’re the guides, and they are the people who will make or break your safari experience.

Ours is Mike, who like all the others is in full “Jock of the Bushveld” rig, but he stands out by virtue of the warmth of his smile. As he drives us over the dirt roads to Africa on Foot, we discover that his family farms avocados further north and he’s been a bush kid all his life. His tracker, Greg from Zimbabwe, has a similar background. His dad’s a farmer too, and both guys are cool, funny, and passionate about sharing their love of the wild.

Vast though the Kruger is, it’s still a park, and we can enter it only through an enormous gate, that from a distance looks a bit like the Berlin Wall. Passes are checked by guntoting guards, but once inside, we soon see little groups of impala and zebra, while a bataleur eagle rocks overhead, looking for snakes. It has plenty to choose from.

The Klaserie, the area where we’re staying, has seven that can kill you: Africa’s most venomous, the boomslang: the continent’s largest, the black mamba, as well as the snouted cobra, the Mozambique spitting cobra, the twig snake, the shield nosed snake and, most dangerous of all, the puff adder. As the disclaimer we sign on arrival points out, Africa on Foot is an unfenced camp, which means that wild animals can and do pass through it, although usually only at night, when you’re safely tucked up in bed. On our first morning, we wake to learn that a leopard has done just that while we slept, but not all the dangerous beasties are quite as big or quite so charismatic.

I don’t want to alarm you - and I should emphasise that we always felt entirely safe - but you should probably be aware that the Klaserie also plays host to several kinds of

South Africa

scorpion, which tend to be more active during the hot summer nights, so we made a point of following Mike’s advice, which was i) always carry a torch when going to your hut, and ii) don’t wear open-sided shoes after dark.

By the way, should you come across a scorpion - and have the time to give it a reproving glare before leaping athletically in the opposite direction - it may help you to know that the most venomous ones have a fat tail and small pincers, while the least venomous have big pincers and thinner tails. So good luck, and don’t forget to shake your shoes out in the morning…

I’d read somewhere that the bush has a unique smell, but what struck me when we arrived at Africa On Foot was that while the heat was intense, there was no smell at all.

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South Africa

It felt as though the land was somehow holding its breath, and it turned out that it was.

Mike explained that Susie and I have chosen to come to the hottest part of the Kruger at the hottest time of the hot season and that in the very hottest part of the day, not only do the flowers close to hang onto their precious moisture, but some of the trees actually fold up their leaves too.

It’s only in the cooler air of the late afternoon, when the trees release their sap and the flowers open again, that the earth breathes out, and suddenly there it is - the evocative, unmistakeable scent of the bush.

The Afrikaans word for this kind of country is lowveld: arid, semi-desert land. The soil is thin stuff, little more than sand mixed with quartz, and yet the ground is covered with millions of scrubby Mopane trees that provide food and shelter for a huge range of birds, insects, and animals.

We have a couple of hours to relax before we go out for our first safari in the late afternoon, and it doesn’t take us long to check out the camp, which feels very authentic. We stayed in one of their five traditionally thatched chalets although they also have a wonderful tree house at some distance from the camp that has an open-air deck with a bed that must be perfect for intrepid romantics.

The chalets are small and refreshingly simple, with room

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for 4 people in double and twin beds. Yes, there’s an ensuite bathroom, and there are mosquito nets above our double bed, but the camp is solar-powered to keep things natural. As a result, there’s no electricity between 12pm and 4pm, so the best thing to do in your down time is read in the shade of the comfortable lounge, built around the trunk of an old tree, or laze by the circular splash pool where if you’re very lucky, you may be joined by the occasional thirsty elephant. Despite its remoteness, the camp does have wifi, so you can happily pass an idle hour irritating your friends by posting your pictures to Facebook.

One of the joys of being on safari is that you go out on two ‘drives’ every day. Because the morning drive starts before dawn and the evening one ends after dark, in effect you’re getting two days worth of adventure squeezed into one. At Africa on Foot, as the name suggests, the emphasis is on walking. Each safari lasts about three hours, and each and every one starts with a thorough briefing from your guide on how to behave in the bush.

Now the bush is called the bush for a reason. It’s really hard to see into. This is not the Serengeti, the land of endless space, where the grasslands stretch for miles.

No, this is the bush, where huge animals like elephants and cape buffalo can be just yards away, but you won’t see them until they step out in front of you, which is when the first rule of safari comes into play.

South Africa The first rule of safari is “Don’t run”.

As Mike says, “only lunch runs. If you see a dangerous animal, stay absolutely still. Mind you, if we tell you to run, run like hell!” Mike and Greg both carry .458 hunting rifles wherever they go, but as they tell us, they hope never to use them, because their aim is to show us the animal without it knowing we’re there.

The second thing we learn, even before the sun rises, is that Mike and Greg really know their shit: literally.

It’s the shit that tells you who’s been here, when they were here, and sometimes even why. Dung and urine are nature’s way of communicating: animals check them to learn the answers to life’s big questions like “are you in season?” or “do you want to fight me?” and under Mike and Greg’s expert guidance, we soon begin to distinguish between the rhino’s rest room and the impala chief’s rutting spot.

Beau Travel Magazine us, in a lesson that no classroom could ever convey, is that if you can read the land, it will speak to you.

Tracks converging in one direction suggest we’re moving towards water: two pads on the footprint says hyena: three says cat, and the print that makes the perfect map of Africa belongs to a baboon.

As the rising sun turns the land to gold, the birds begin to talk to us: rollers, hornbills, and red crested caracal, but the animals whose tracks we are following - lion, leopard, hippo and African wild dog - have all passed by invisibly during the night. Somehow that doesn’t matter. The thrill of safari is not seeing the Big Five, but hoping to.

Instead, we meet the wonderfully named heart attack bird, thrill to the extraordinary display of the suicide bird, and consider ourselves blessed to spend five minutes in the company of the extremely rare ground hornbill, of which there are fewer than 700 in all of the Kruger. We also learn about trees: the dangerous tamboti, whose sap can blind you, and the toothbrush tree, the guarri, whose leaves sparkle magically when thrown onto a fire.

on branches that they hope will overhang water; if the rains return, the pond will fill and the tadpoles will survive, but they could well be eaten long before then by baboons, who can eat almost anything.

Suddenly Greg freezes, cocks his head, and sniffs the air. “Can you smell that?” he asks. “Smell what?” we reply. “Breakfast” he grins. We make our way back to camp where our boerewors, scrambled egg, fried peppers, and mushrooms were delicious, as was the mango, papaya, and kiwi fruit kebab that preceded them.

After a splash in the pool, a bite of lunch, and a snooze in the shade, we’re ready for our next adventure.

This time we take to four wheels and head out to explore the more remote parts of Africa on Foot’s 60,000-acre estate, and it isn’t long before we come across the first of our Big Five: a sixteen-strong family of elephants, ambling along in the golden light, absent-mindedly stripping trees of I wasn’t surprised to learn that their leaves and delicately plucking elephant poo is the easiest to spot, the freshest fronds of the newlybut I was astonished to discover that grown grass, using who knows how it’s a virtual ecosystem in itself. many of the forty thousand different Elephants digest less than half the muscles with which they control their 250 kilos of vegetation they consume We’re having such a good time that immensely long trunks. They have in a day, so their poo provides a rich we’re still out there at almost ten in four babies with them who’ve found resource for others. Birds and the morning. By now, the sun is high a puddle to play in, and like baboons pick through it for in the sky, and all is silent, apart boisterous toddlers, they push and undigested seeds, dung beetles roll it from the mournful descant of a shove one another into and out of into balls before laying their eggs in distant rain bird. It has rained the mud with squeaks of delight. As it, while native people burn the dried recently and the land is covered with the sun drops towards the edge of stuff as a mosquito repellent and fresh grass and flowers, but the the sky, we stop for a sundowner and dissolve it in water to drink as an aid guides would welcome more, as I then, as darkness falls, Greg comes in childbirth. It’s all fascinating, but am sure would the tree frogs, who’ve into his own. what our guides are really teaching laid their meringue-like nests of eggs

South Africa You don’t get trackers on all safaris, but when you do, be very grateful, because they are your eyes, ears, and sixth sense. Usually born in the bush, they’ve been taught their skills from infancy, and from signs invisible to you and me, they can interpret the landscape with uncanny accuracy. Most of them are black Africans, but all of them talk to their guides in one or other of the indigenous languages so that they can say things like “there’s a big female leopard over there” without having six over-excited guests scrambling to their feet shouting, “where, where?”

The tracker always sits in the jump seat, literally on the bonnet of the Landrover, so he gets the best view and at night he carries a flashlight, scanning constantly for the reflection that might reveal the presence of a pride of lions or a dazzle of zebra. Bouncing along the dirt track in the cool evening air, we catch a fleeting glimpse of a shy antelope called the kudu, which lives up to its nickname as “the grey ghost of the bush” by promptly vanishing, and then moments later, we see a group of four spotted hyenas, apparently in pursuit. We slow to walking pace as the hyenas shoulder alongside us, utterly unconcerned by our presence, before they too disappear, leaving us babbling with excitement.

A few minutes later, literally as we arrive back at camp, Greg sees something else out of the corner of his eye. We squeal to a halt, back

Beau Travel Magazine up a bit, and there, caught in the beam above us is a tiny, bat-eared bush baby who briefly returns our round-eyed gaze before bounding off through the branches, out into the black velvet embrace of the African night.

www.africaonfoot.com E-mail: reservations@sundestinations.co.za Telephone: +27 (0) 21 421 8433

South Africa

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The Karoo

South Africa

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It’s a good three hours drive over almost completely straight roads from Port Elizabeth to Graaff-Reinet, the regional capital of the Great Karoo, which lies on the western frontier of the Eastern Cape province. We did it in the dark and in all that time, we saw no more than a dozen vehicles coming the other way.

It was dark, it was cold, it was obvious that if we broke down we’d be on our own for a very, very long time, and the question echoing through our minds was the one everyone had asked: “Why on earth do you want to go there?”

The Karoo has never been an easy place. It means ‘desert’ in the Khoi language, and early European travellers found it an almost impenetrable wilderness of frightening extremes:

great heat, great frosts, great droughts, and great floods. Not much has changed since then, which explains why nobody could imagine why we’d go out of our way to visit a desolate backwater, famous only for sheep, ostriches, and hard-scrabble farmers.

It’s still a wild place, but recently, things have really changed.

Struggling sheep farms

have become thriving safari lodges; ostriches are back in vogue, not

for their feathers but for their lean, high protein meat, and a hip new

Beau Travel Magazine generation of travellers has fallen in love with its endless skies and road-movie landscape.

Graaff-Reinet, where we were headed, lies at the heart of the Great Karoo. Tucked into a bend in the Sundays River, it was founded in 1786, which makes it the fourth-oldest town in South Africa, and it’s been a lively place from the get go.

Many of the Voortrekkers, or Boers, came from around here, including Andries Pretorius, who commanded the Boer forces at the Battle of Blood River and went on to became the first president of the Republic.

Coincidentally, at the end of the Boer War, the Graaff-Reinet Club found itself playing host to a high-spirited detachment of the Coldstream Guards, who shot it to pieces, but in a truly forgiving spirit, the club continues to welcome any former or serving member of the regiment today.

You don’t need to be an architect to enjoy looking at the town’s collection of more than two hundred historical buildings, any more than you need to be a historian to appreciate the irony that Graaff-Reinet gave birth both to the architect of apartheid, H.F. Verwoerd and to one of its most eloquent opponents, Robert Sobukwe.

South Africa The tobacco billionaire Rupert dynasty was founded here too, and the family continues to invest in the restoration of this vibrant little town.

Beau Travel Magazine both of the history and the future of this very chic retreat.

The Business Suite sits directly across from the Cigar Bar, which looks and feels very Their most recent project is The much like the library of one Drostdy Hof, the one time of the smarter gentleman’s magistrate’s office, which has been clubs in London, but what spruced up, dusted down, and makes it unmistakably of the thoroughly fitted out as a luxury Karoo is its wall, entirely hung boutique hotel, complete with with the scalps of Springboks. cigar bar, state of the art gym, and Sadly Francois Pienaar’s is not a world-class Africology Spa. amongst them: what those horns hark back to are the great No expense has been spared to migrations of gazelles and make The Drostdy Hof a true antelopes that used to sweep destination hotel. There are a across this land. number of ‘bachelor’ rooms within the old Drostdy building on the The last one on record happened main street, but most of the suites in 1849 when so many animals are out back, in the simple but were on the move that they literally elegant pastel coloured cottages walked hip by jowl through towns that used to house the slaves who and villages for three straight days worked in the nearby cotton fields. and nights, eating everything in their path, easy prey for lions, The bell that summoned them to hyenas, and any bystander with a work hangs there today, but the club. interiors have been upgraded to meet the expectations of today’s The other truly original decorative sophisticated international traveller motif in the Drostdy Hof is its with all the luxury bathroom collection of the original artist’s amenities, international plugs, and proofs of the first edition of Austin complementary wi-fi you could Roberts’ seminal work The Birds of possibly want.

South Africa, which was first published in 1940 and has been Our spacious suite sat in a little in print ever since. courtyard around a shared pool, which was somewhat reminiscent You can get a version of the book of a mid-century LA motel, but it for your iPhone now, but it was was really in the elegantly really wonderful to see these proportioned main building itself, beautiful illustrative plates on the with its adjacent art gallery and walls of the restaurant as we wine store that we got a sense enjoyed our breakfast.

Drostdy Hotel www.newmarkhotels.com/accomm odation/hotels/drostdy-hotel E-mail: reservations@newmarkhotels.com Telephone: +27 (0) 21427 5900

If the landscape around GraaffReinet strikes you as prehistoric, that’s because it is. The Karoo is one of the world’s biggest and most important fossil graveyards, and it has history to its bones.

The Karoo was once a shallow inland sea, and its fossil record goes back three billion years to a time before the dinosaurs first crawled from the primeval ooze.

The town’s Old Library Museum houses an extensive collection, but you really should take a trip out to Nieu Bethesda where you can see The Fossil Exploration Centre, named after the renowned palaeontologist James Kitching, whose discoveries proved that Antarctica and southern Africa were once a part of the almost legendary super-continent of Gondwanaland.

South Africa

Nieu Bethesda is best known as the home of leading playwright Athol Fugard, but it’s become even more famous because of the late Helen Martins, the eccentric artist who inspired Fugard’s play, The Road to Mecca. Martins lived her entire life in Nieu Bethesda before she killed herself by drinking caustic soda, and her house is now a museum that showcases her affecting outsider art.

Owls were her favourite subjects, and over the years, she turned her simple home into a dazzlingly melancholy place of pilgrimage.

The walls and ceilings of The Owl House are encrusted with ground glass, while mirrors bounce the daylight into the sombre interiors.

Martins also worked in concrete, and dozens of her statues of bearded men and camels process through her backyard in ecstatic adoration of a figure of Christ, backlit by the rising sun.

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township are dirt poor. Many of them have stalls surrounding the Owl House, where they sell their own homemade replicas of Helen Martin’s art at pitifully low prices.

It’s hard to resist the charm of chameleon sculptures that have been inventively recycled from old Coke cans, but if you’re in the market for something altogether more sophisticated, check out the studio and workshop of ceramicist Charmaine Haynes, whose work is to be found in many national and international collections. www.charmainehaines.co.za/ biography.php

Nieu Bethesda remains defiantly old-fashioned. There is no bank there, let alone credit card facilities, and there’s no petrol station either, so you might want to bring cash and hire a bike. The round trip from Graaf-Reinet is only about 30 miles: although it runs below the Sneeuberg mountains, the track is mostly flat Nieu Bethesda is a haunting place. and the scenery is straight out of Hollywood, so with its straight dirt Life is still hard here and the roads and luminous skies, you people who live in the nearby

might be in the badlands of Dakota. It’s a wild, desolate place.

Lightning crackles among the peaks, and you can’t help feeling that camera crews are lurking behind every koppie: if this was America, they’d be making movies here.

On your way to Nieu Bethesda, or on your way back, stop off at one of the most original deli-bars you will find anywhere in the world.

The Two Goats Deli has a simple but perfect formula: they make their own cheese, they brew their own beer, and they also make their own kudu salami: the combination is lush.

Their tasting menu offers five kinds of ale, from honeyed mead through cider to a toasted porter, all served in short, Duralex glasses, served with four different goat’s cheeses: pepper and honey, sweet chilli, a hard plain cheese and one with nettles and roast olive, all accompanied by homemade bread, kudu salami, beetroot jam, and sweet cucumber

South Africa relish. When we dropped in, we were welcomed by two German students, Florian and Francisca, who were giving their time in exchange for bed and board and lessons in brewing, gardening, and cheese making. www.facebook.com/pages/ The-Brewery-and-Two-GoatsDeli/134730096560303

This is no country for vegetarians.

Karoo lamb is famously delicious, so there are lynx-like desert cats called caracals that prey on them, and the farmers hunt the caracals in their turn. Unlike a safari, where the animals are habituated to vehicles, most of what wildlife there is keeps a very low profile, but as well as falcons and the occasional ibis, you should see wild ostriches, which thrive in these arid conditions. While the market for their fabulous feathers peaked at the outbreak of the First World War, they are still farmed for their leather and their meat, particularly near Oudtshoorn, where the distinctive red “Feather Palaces” built by the Ostrich Barons of the Victorian Age survive to this day.

From Graaf-Reinet, the long straight road to Oudtshoorn runs for 164 miles, past the wonderfully named Valley of Desolation, and the little farming town of Aberdeen. If you have time, leave in the evening, draw over to the side of the road, spread out a blanket and become thoroughly star-struck: at night, The Karoo

Beau Travel Magazine offers some of the best star-gazing in the world, and its completely clear sky is peppered with planets and studded with stars.

During the day, the heat of the sun is fierce. You’ll travel miles without seeing much more than windmills, the occasional family of ostrich, and telegraph poles entirely swamped by bird’s nests, but if you put Ry Cooder’s soundtrack to ‘Paris Texas’ on the stereo, you’ll feel right at home. The Karoo is South Africa’s Big Empty, but look hard enough, and you will find bushmen paintings on dolerite rocks in the Upper Karoo: travel far enough and you can crawl through dripstone caverns carved from Precambrian limestone in the 20 million year old Cango Caves.

antelope. Before the advent of refrigeration, all meat had to be cured and dried this way. It’s often very dry, and about as appetising as a doggie chew, but if you ask for the moist variety with a little bit of fat and have it sliced to order, it becomes a real delicacy, the bresaola of the bush.

As Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland, “There’s no there, there” and while The Karoo is not somewhere to go looking for shops or nightlife, there is an awesome beauty to be found in these parched lands. Poets and image makers are drawn here, notably the former Princeton Professor of Photography, Obie Oberholzer, whose book on The Karoo captures the land in all its bleak The Karoo is very, very arid, but grandeur. Of all the souvenirs we occasionally tiny patches of intense brought back with us, his book is green appear. That greenery tells the most evocative. We only caught you that there is water, and where a glimpse of The Karoo, but it was there is water, there is a farm, enough to make us want to return: many of which raise angora goats to look, to listen, and to dream. for the mohair industry, which is centred on Graaf-Reinet. Half way down what feels like the road to nowhere, you may come across a café where the menu and the conversation is entirely in Afrikaans, and you can buy fourteen different kinds of biltong, which along with snoek (a kind of fish South Africans like to serve with apricot jam) was just one of the local foods I really wasn’t looking forward to trying.

Biltong is made from meat of all kinds, including ostrich and

The Garden Route

South Africa

You may well wonder how The Garden Route got its name.

A narrow stretch of land that runs for 200 miles between Storms River in the Eastern Cape and Mossel Bay, it is admittedly very beautiful, and there is a fair bit of vegetation in between the deserted beaches on one side, and the awe-inspiring mountains on the other, but you’ll be hard pushed to find a manicured lawn, let alone an elaborate floral display anywhere, because the Garden Route is not really a garden at all.

It is in fact what botanists call a ‘Floral Kingdom’, and that makes it kind of special. There are only six Floral Kingdoms in the world, and The Cape Floral Kingdom is the smallest of them all. Despite its tiny size, it has the highest concentration of plant species in the world: three times as many as the rain forest of South America, and more remarkable still, over two-thirds of them grow nowhere else on Earth.

Most of the 9,600 species that you’ll find here are part of a unique kind of heathland called fynbos, that is seen to its best advantage during the spring (September and October) when its millions of flowers come into bloom, (which meant we’d missed

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it), but there’s plenty to do and see Bartholomeu Diaz, where you will here whatever time of year you go. find the oldest post box in South Africa. In 1500 a Portuguese sailor Mossel Bay is usually regarded as named Pedro d’Ataide put a note the start of the route, and although into an old boot that he hung from

it’s now a big industrial petrochemical centre, there is a bit of the old port town at its heart. It’s still worth a visit not least because it was once home to the earliest inhabitants of South Africa, the San, and in the Cape St. Blaize Cave, below today’s Pinnacle Point Golf Resort and Hotel, you can still see evidence of how they lived more than 200,000 years ago.

You might also want to visit the museum named after the first European to sail around the southernmost tip of Africa,

a milkwood tree. Over the years, it became a message tree for passing mariners and while the boot has long-since rotted away, you can still post your cards home from the museum’s boot-shaped letterbox.

There are many maritime excursions to choose from. Take a boat out to Seal Island and watch thousands of endangered Cape fur seals as they sunbathe on the rocks or bob up and down in the freezing cold waters, or if you’re feeling adventurous (we were),

South Africa and the sea state is good (it wasn’t) you can go cage diving with great white sharks.

Cage diving differs from cage fighting in that the dangerous beasts are outside your safety cage but just watching these awesome twenty foot long predators up close is still adrenaline-pumping stuff. Choose a day of flat calm if you can find one: what you want is clear visibility and little or no swell for the optimum fright of your life.

White Shark Africa can provide everything you need including a wetsuit, but don’t forget to bring an underwater housing for your camera, and take a sea-sickness pill before you go: it’s pretty bouncy out there.

It’s a short drive from Mossel Bay to the Knysna Lake section of the Garden Route National Park where the densely forested mountains come down to the sea.

One of the twenty South African National Parks, Knysna has an old goldmine as well as a wonderful network of wetland lagoons where you can kayak among 250 species of birds including many kinds of kingfisher.

You can stay in the park, or in the pretty town of Knysna itself, which sits on a tranquil lagoon that hosts an oyster festival each July. We drove out past some very high-end properties to The Heads where we had a simple but tasty lunch at The East head Café as towering

Beau Travel Magazine In terms of extreme outdoor activities there really is nothing you can’t do here. You can dive with sharks, you can surf with dolphins, you can plunge from the world’s The N2 is the road that runs highest bungee jump, and you can through the Garden Route, and soar above the ocean watching it’s home to a lot of prime real whales on a tandem paraglider estate. The first thing we noticed or you could just stick to gentler as we turned off it into the cute pursuits like snorkelling, hiking little town of Wilderness was the and cycling: there are plenty of advertising shingle of Sotheby’s Property Department, and it didn’t local businesses that will rent you the kit and show you the ropes. take long to work out why.

The Vic Bay Surf Lodge is on the main street in Wilderness, but if Wilderness has many dream you’re hardcore, you already know properties with garden walls you need to keep heading three overflowing with purple Bougainvillea, and a laidback café hours east to the legendary culture where dudes with braids in “supertubes” of Jeffrey’s Bay. their hair hang out between Serious surfers come from all over sessions on their surf-kayaks. the world to slide through J Bay's Custom-built mountain bikes abound, many with huge ‘Fat Boy’ barrels, and in the right conditions, when storm-force tyres for cycling along the miles south-westerlies push a wall of and miles of white sand beach, where the thunder of the crashing water into the bay, they can be riding eight foot waves that are surf cleanses the mind. waves crashed over the huge sandstone cliffs that protect the lagoon.

South Africa The Lemongrass Restaurant is a buzzy, busy joint right on the end of Lookout Beach, where the barman knows how to make the perfect caipirinha and make it again. The service was sassy, the fish came almost straight from the sea, and our waiter told us to have the second cheapest wine on the menu, because it was the best. He two hundred yard long. If you was right: our Klein Steenberg don’t want to go that far, there are Sauvignon Blanc simply fizzed with plenty of surf shops all along the flavour. Another of its plus points is Garden Route where you can hire it serves only local, sustainable boards and get the dope on local fish, so it may help you to know conditions. We didn’t, and chose that kingclip tastes like monkfish, instead to get a bit of beach time kabeljou tasted like cod, and even in Plettenberg Bay, (or Plett as it’s though it looks like some kind of known to the locals: South Africans sea-dragon, gurnard is delicious. love their abbreviations, as you Plett is officially South Africa’s top may already have gathered). beach resort, so it’s popular with the Italians, Swiss, and, of course What comes to mind when you the Germans who, I am sorry to hear the phrase Seaside B&B? report still conform to stereotype Well think again. Think Malibu, and rise at six am to put their think Grand Designs. The towels on the sun beds before Periwinkle Guest Lodge is an ultra- going back to bed again, so you chic, terrazzo and glass minimalist may need to be firm - or just set villa with just seven double rooms your alarm even earlier. But it’s a that will set you back £160 a night blissful place for a few days of in high season, so cheap it ain’t. downtime, and there can be few But given it’s just a stone’s throw other places in the world where from the beach, on the smartest you can sip Sauvignon Blanc as part of the frightfully smart Beachy the sun sets on your balcony, while Head Drive, and has both an only yards away, a fifty-strong pod infinity pool and a sun deck with of dolphins re-enact the bait ball views to the far blue horizon, we scene from The Blue Planet. think you’ll be happy there. We certainly were. Milk tart and tea ACTIVITY GUIDE were served on our arrival and we Bartholomeu Diaz Museum, passed the early part of the www.diasmuseum.co.za evening watching the surfers, before taking a cab downtown for Boat to Seal Island www.mosselbay.co.za/romonza dinner.

Beau Travel Magazine Cage diving White Shark Africa www.whitesharkafrica.com

Knysna Oyster Festival www.oysterfestival.co.za

Sea kayaking (Real Cape Adventures, 00 27 82 556 2520, www.seakayak.co.za, R180/£11 (for half a day)

Black water tubing (Storm's River Adventures, www.stormsriver.com, 00 27 42 281 1836, (around R295/£18) Rafting on the Breede River (Felix Unite, www.felixunite.com, 00 27 21 683 6433, (R895/£54 for three days)

Canoeing on the Keurbooms River Cape Nature Conservation, 00 27 44 533 2125, www.capenature.org.za, from (R90/£5.50 per person for an overnight trip).

Tandem paragliding from Wilderness Cloudbase Paragliding 00 27 44 877 1414, www.cloudbase-paragliding.co.za

It’s 216 metres to the bottom at the world's highest bungee jump at Bloukrans River Bridge.

Face Adrenaline, 00 27 42 281 1458, www.faceadrenalin.com, R500/£30).

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Gondwana

You don't need to go all the way up to the Kruger to do a safari. Just up the road from Mossel Bay is Gondwana, a rolling 11,000 hectare reserve where Mark and Wendy Rutherfoord have created a unique wildlife sanctuary that looks and feels just like a scene from the film, Out Of Africa.

pincushions of South Africa’s national flower, the protea, are all around.

Mixed in with the bright pink of the ericas and the vivid green of the slender reeds, those three plant families are the core of the fynbos that blankets the hills all around the camp.

The best time to arrive is late afternoon, Named for Gondwanaland, the ancient as the heat of the day recedes, and the landmass from which Africa was setting sun casts long shadows from the formed more than 200 million years dome-shaped thatched huts that recall ago, Gondwana has a very different the traditional buildings of the Khoisan landscape from the Kruger. Instead of people, who once made their home dense bush, there are breathtaking here. views over wide grassy plains and undulating fynbos-covered valleys all Kwena Lodge, where you will eat and the way to the Langeberg mountains, meet your fellow guests, sits on a ridge and under the auspices of the reserve’s above a large infinity pool, in the Endangered Species Protection centre of a semi-circle of fourteen Programme, the Rutherfoods have stand-alone huts. Decorated in earth reintroduced many animal species on colours, it has a welcoming the verge of extinction, including Cape atmosphere, especially on the chilly mountain zebra, cheetah, and the evenings when a fire is lit, decanters of extremely rare and endangered desert port are passed, and guests mingle, black rhino. swapping stories of their day’s excitements.

The logic is simple. Before we Europeans turned up and killed them The main lodge is open-plan, with a all off, there were great herds of bar next to the dining area, with plenty elephants and other game animals of comfortable sofas and armchairs in here. Gondwana, and places like it, are which to sink after a hard day in the doing their utmost to restore the land to back of a Landrover. Above you hang what it once was. It may be a little traditional African fishing baskets, artificial, but it’s a win-win situation: the ingeniously adapted into lampshades: animals get the round the clock like the rest of the design of protection they need to re-establish Gondwana, they feel clever, viable breeding populations, while we unobtrusive, and authentic. get the chance to have some extraordinary encounters.

Dinner is simple, but delicious. Spicy cream of broccoli soup is followed by Gondwana is only just off the Garden gougons of fish with cucumber salad, Route so it’s very much a part of the Cajun-spiced black beans, couscous Cape Floral Kingdom, and the yellow and pea shoots tartare,

South Africa all created from locally sourced ingredients, and served at rustic, oak tables.

The atmosphere is lively, thanks to a group of Norwegian guests who entertain us with their animated conversation, interspersed with drinking songs.

Afterwards, staff guide us by torchlight along the woodchip path, down steps carved from ancient rocks to our honeymoon suite, where the sand-coloured polished concrete floors and ochre walls of our circular open plan suite, feel like a continuation of the land outside. We lie on the crisp white linen of our king-size bed, look up through the skylight, and watch the millions of stars of the Milky Way as it glides silently across the night. Outside, a spotted eagle owl calls to its brood: further away, a lion coughs, and we remember why there are strict instructions not to leave our room till sunrise.

Beau Travel Magazine are getting smarter by the day, and as South Africa is currently losing rhino at the rate of one every nine hours, we can entirely understand why we don’t want to be inadvertently giving away their location.

After some homemade rusks, and a steaming mug of strong coffee, our new American friends Mary and Ranald join us in the first Landrover to head off. Most of the guests on our drive are just using the camera on their smartphones, but Ranald is a keen photographer whose Nikon sports a long 70-200 mm lens and a motor-drive, which is why these are his spectacular shots of the extraordinary secretary bird, a kind of eagle on stilts that specializes in killing and eating snakes.

antelope, to join the eland, red hartebeest, kudu, gemsbok and others that make up the fourteen species that now provide great photo-opportunities for us, as well as breakfast, lunch and dinner for the lions and cheetahs that prey on them.

Finding The Big Five is always on the agenda at Gondwana, but as we trundle along the dusty track.

Brian points out some of the other less familiar but no less interesting residents: a steppe buzzard soar above a herd of impala; a pair of hippos eye us grumpily from the safety of their waterhole, and a black harrier glides by at head height as it returns to its nest in the fynbos. Then, just as we turn a corner, we meet a female rhino and her calf: the mother’s horn has been surgically removed, making her valueless to poachers, If you really want to leave only and she and her baby graze just footprints and bring back feet away from us, entirely memories, I learned the hard way, oblivious to our presence until, so my advice is simple: bring the after fifteen minutes or so, we The first game drive is at the very best camera you can afford, and move on. civilised hour of 6.00 am. The sun learn how to use it before you is up but the air is still cool, and turn up: very few animals are Here and there, the land has a we feel glad to have lugged thick going to just hang around waiting very particular and quite familiar fleeces and chinos all this way, as till you’ve found your focus. smell that Brian confirms is the weather down here in the Helichrysum, known to gardeners Cape is distinctly cooler than the Brian explains that almost all the here as the curry plant, or sub-tropical Kruger. game animals here have been everlasting. Its flowers were used introduced since Gondwana was in the Middle Ages as a strewing Our driver Brian is from founded in 2007, and much has herb: here in South Africa, the Zimbabwe. He’s our first native changed since then. The Bushmen still use it for bedding African guide and one of the first pioneering group of four and as a mosquito repellent. things he asks us to do is to orphaned elephants is now a fully Suddenly, the Landrover comes to disable the GPS tracking function established breeding herd. Last a stop, and Brian puts his hand to in our camera phones. Poachers year saw the arrival of 800 his lips and points towards a

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Above you hang traditional African fishing baskets, ingeniously adapted into lampshades: like the rest of the design of Gondwana, they feel clever, unobtrusive, and authentic.

South Africa wooded copse about 200 yards away. We all look in the same direction, mystified, until Brian whispers, “young male lion, two o’clock”, and then what had been just another patch of sandy ground moved, yawned and stretched to reveal a magnificent tawny beast with a thick, dark mane, and golden eyes that seemed to look right through us.

Beau Travel Magazine opportunity presented itself, he would just continue to loll about, snoozing, and conserving his energy.

We felt as though we had all the time in the world just to look and take it all in. We didn’t have Ranald’s long lens to take great photos, but the Swarovski Optik binoculars we’d hired from The Safari Store allowed us to study the lion’s face in detail, to see the lines We were downwind, so the lion of dark spots where his whiskers couldn’t smell us, but even if he had there was nothing to worry appear, the gradations of colour in his mane, and even the white hairs about. A small group of impala passed only a few yards away, and on his chin. he barely raised his head. Brian Gathering round the Landrover on told us that the lion had killed a wildebeest three days ago, and he a nearby hilltop when we stop for coffee and a snack, the guests wasn’t hungry yet: until the next

compare photos and chat. What strikes me most strongly, as we bask in the morning light, is that every face is smiling. What better way, and what better place could there be to start the day?

Gondwana Game Reserve www.gondwanagr.co.za E-mail: reservations@gondwanagr.co.za Telephone: +27 (0) 21 5550807

The Wine Country South Africa

Wine merchants here in the UK tend to lump South African wines into the New World category, which is a bit cheeky, because wine has been made in South Africa for more than three hundred years. It all started in the late 17th century, when protestant Huguenots fleeing religious persecution in their native France established the first vineyards around Cape Town, so not only is South Africa’s tradition much longer than that of California or Australia, but the character of the wine owes rather more to the Old World than you might expect.

may feature six or seven wines each ingeniously paired with a range of gourmet foods including cheese or even chocolate. Many have cool restaurants or bistros in which to linger over a few choice bottles, and a long lunch that rarely finishes before four in the afternoon. A select few also have beautiful bedrooms to which to stagger afterwards, but they tend to be booked well in advance, so bear that in mind and remember you can always take a taxi…

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while in the opposite direction, over the shoulder of the cloudcapped Drakenstein mountains, There are many winemaking areas lies the university city of in South Africa where you don’t Stellenbosch, where many of particularly need to go, like today’s top wine makers earned You could spend weeks, even Worcester, Robertson and their degrees. Both are well worth months getting to know all of the Swartland, where most of the a visit, but as Franschhoek is wine lands, because South African production is on the industrial generally regarded as the food wine tourism is not just a very big scale required to supply the and wine capital of South Africa, business: it’s also a very leisurely incredible bulk of South African’s we chose to base ourselves close phenomenon, and try saying that wine, 64% of which arrives here in by, at one of the oldest wine after your tasting session! If you’re vast vacuum packs for own-label estates in the country: Boschendal. happy to sip and spit, you might bottling by the major manage to get round more than supermarkets, but we’re not BOSCHENDAL one winery in a day, but that would drinking that stuff today. Today, Almost equidistant from be against the spirit of the thing, we’re looking for something a bit Franschhoek, Paarl, and so my advice would be to book special, and today the hot place to Stellenbosch, Boschendal is one of well ahead, take your time, and go, in every sense of the word, is the very few original Cape enjoy.

Franschhoek, the original Quartier farmhouses that have been Français where the first French restored and furnished to look and All producers offer a tour of the farmers settled in 1688. feel as it would have done more vineyards that starts about half Franschhoek is the epicentre, but than three hundred years ago. past ten in the morning. That’s it’s not the only place you could The manor house is built in the usually followed by a cellar tour go. Just a few miles down the Berg shape of the letter H, and as you and a tutored tasting that takes a valley lies the perhaps better walk through its dark and good hour and a half, and which known wine making town of Paarl,

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atmospheric rooms with their teakframed doors and yellowwood floorboards, it’s as though you have entered the world of Rembrandt or Vermeer. Time stands still here. A brace of guinea fowl hang by their feet above the burnished copper pans on the cast iron kitchen range, ready to be plucked; a fan of black and white pens made from porcupine quills wait to be dipped in the inkwell of a mahogany writing desk.

Outside in the daylight, a row of former slave quarters now houses the estate shop, a delicatessen, and a bistro, and sprinklers play over the Garden Of Healing, created to honour the memory of the generations of slaves, farm workers and their families, whose ceaseless toil made Boschendal what it is today. On the eastern slope of the grounds lies an internationally acclaimed rose garden where many of the rare, original strains that were developed here are still grown today.

it’s all very Farrow & Ball.

Festooned with mosquito netting, a beautiful brass bed dominates the large, open-plan bedroom where an armoire in English Heritage colours offers more storage than you will ever need, as well as a built-in safe for your valuables.

Thick sisal carpets run through to a spacious, well-fitted bathroom; in the living room, there’s a dresser with floral pattern cups and saucers, while in the kitchen you’ll find Le Creuset pans on the stove, and everything you need to rustle up a meal. There’s milk in the fridge and, of course, a bottle of the estate’s very own Blanc De Noir to enjoy on your terrace as you watch the evening clouds evanesce on the Drakenstein ridge across the valley.

You could just drop in to visit the estate, walk round the Manor House, stroll through the vineyards, dine at any of its three restaurants, or just pick up some produce at the deli, but you can also stay. There are several options, from the luxurious Rhodes Cottage to the simpler but still stylish cottages once occupied by If you have the time, you can be the farm labourers, and boy have part of life on what is still very they changed! They still have the much a working farm, so don’t be reed-lined ceilings, but below there

grumpy if you’re woken by the sound of a tractor. Join one of the many organized tours, or explore the estate on your own, following trails through the orchards where you can pick pears, plums, or citrus fruits in season. Borrow a mountain bike, delve into a cave, catch a trout, swim in the dam, or just sit there among your rose bushes and look over the lake where ibis probe the grass, and the mountain rises in shadow. www.boschendal.com

FRANSCHHOEK French Corner is actually what Franschhoek means in Afrikaans, and you will see why as you drive past its estates and down its streets, all of which are named after the parts of France from which the Huguenots originally hailed. Even today after centuries of intermarriage, and despite the ubiquitous Cape Dutch

South Africa architecture, there is no missing the very French style of this smart little town that lies at the heart of the Cape wine lands.

Franschhoek is hot in two senses.

At the height of summer it can top 40 degrees (104 Fahrenheit) so it is absolutely sweltering until about six in the evening when the cool, strong, south-easterly wind called The Cape Doctor blows down from the mountains and across the vineyards, and it is only that oh, so welcome cooling breeze that stops Franschhoek being famous for raisins rather than wine.

It’s also hot in fashion terms.

Franschhoek is Billionaire Row, and whenever an estate comes onto the market, the world’s super-rich vie with each other to get a piece of the action. Richard Branson has just bought one vineyard: Mr Singh, the richest man in India, has bought three. If you feel you’re sufficiently smartly turned out, head up the hill to the Delaire estate at sunset, have a cocktail on their deck, and enjoy watching the clouds pour down from the mountains. While you’re there, pop into the lobby and ask them to show you the world’s largest yellow diamond. It’s 100.09 carat, and last year it made a record $16.3 million at auction. It’s an extraordinary thought that the De Graaf jewellery family who own it decided to buy a wine estate just

Beau Travel Magazine to give it the perfect setting.

The town itself is somewhat more affordable, but it’s still very classy.

You may well find linen tablecloths even at simple cafes where you can enjoy a simple French breakfast of café au lait, croissants, and jam - with the Afrikaans addition of grated cheddar on the side. There are chic clothes shops and smart art galleries, as well as a simple street market where Zimbabwean refugees sell a wide selection of very affordable carved wooden bowls and statues that make great presents. And of course there are many, many bars and restaurants to suit every pocket.

We stopped off at Le Quartier Français, a well-established boutique hotel with an acclaimed ‘tasting restaurant’ and a stylish bar where we enjoyed a sour fig

caipirinha before crossing the road to Foliage, the new kid on the block, where a hip young band of bearded and headscarved chefs led by Chris Erasmus, is winning critical acclaim with their ‘from field to fork’ menu. When they’re not in the kitchen, this piratical crew are out foraging the hills and streams for fiddlehead ferns, wild pears and waterblommetjies with which to shock the jaded palates of Franschhoek foodies, and the décor is similarly of the moment: the tables are made from raw steel and old packing crates, while the walls are a mix of naked brick and raw ochre plaster.

The menu is pretty groovy, and Mrs. M chose well. Her basil, lime & chilli tuna tartar with avocado and horseradish puree, preserved lemon yoghurt and mango atjar

South Africa was delicious, as was her main course of oak smoked water buffalo, mushroom, charcoal pears, whey and black garlic risotto. However my confit duck & foie gras rillette, wild fig & thistle cultured cream, nastergal & lamb crackling brioche, caramelized milk skin, granadilla vinaigrette tasted rather less exciting than it read, while the Boerbok & tongue en crepinette, grilled springbok, roasted bone marrow, purslane, mushroom & oyster, honeybush jus was dry and disappointingly gritty.

That said, the service was cheerful, the open kitchen with its Pirates Of The Caribbean crew provided an entertaining spectacle, and the atmosphere was buzzing, so if you’re up for a culinary adventure and prepared to take the occasional tumble, it’s definitely a place to go. www.lqf.co.za www.franschhoek.co.za

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80,000 bottles of wine a year. To put that in context, Sainsbury’s sell more than 3.5 million bottles a week, but this is what the French call artisanal wine-making: it’s hands-on, it’s small volume, and it’s made with passion and skill, as attested by its many awards.

phylloxera ever appear, it will take the roses first. Disease is not La Petite Ferme’s only enemy. Troops of baboons steal almost a third of their grapes every year. Worse still, the farm was entirely destroyed by fire twenty years ago and it had to LA PETITE FERME be entirely rebuilt; not by At the opposite end of the taste professional builders, but by the spectrum, and in pole position on When we arrive, we are shown family and by the staff, who put the northern slope of the around the vines by Avrond, whose down their pinnies, and picked up Middagkrans Mountain, with an mum Estie is the executive their paint brushes. With their unbeatable view down over the housekeeper. She’s worked here help, the family restored the farm valley sits the legend that is La for more than twenty years and, as themselves, at the rate of one Petite Ferme. we will come to see, La Petite room every six months.

A fine-dining restaurant with rather Ferme is a family business in every Today, La Petite Ferme looks very a good vineyard attached, La Petite sense. much as it always did, but should Ferme is a much-loved stalwart of Avrond explains why every row of you notice that none of the walls the Franschhoek scene, where are perfectly straight and that none third-generation winemakers Mark vines starts and ends with a rose bush. No, it’s not for beauty, but of the corners are entirely level, and Josephine Dendy Young because should the dreaded then that is the reason: La Petite produce a very sought after

South Africa

Beau Travel Magazine opponent of apartheid, who resigned from the government of Rhodesia when it illegally declared independence, and La Petite Ferme’s signature wine, The Verdict, is so-called in his memory.

A blend of Cabernet, Merlot and Cabernet Franc The Verdict is rich with the scent of saddle leather, cigar smoke and cherries, and it’s a wine you could easily lay down for ten years, which makes it unusual for South Africa, where most wines are at their best within two.

Ferme was built not by money, but by love.

Avrond hands us over to Mark Dendy Young, who takes us down to the cellar to talk us through the winemaking process. Mark started his award-winning career at the age of 11, and he’s still fizzing with enthusiasm for his craft. It seems as though his teenage kids Jessica and Tim may follow in his footsteps, so winemaking is clearly in the Dendy Young DNA. That DNA carries within it some reassuringly old-fashioned virtues, having been passed down from Mark’s grandfather, who had an unusual route into wine making.

A former Chief Justice of Botswana, he was also an early

We smell Mark’s creamy, barrelfermented chardonnay, perfect with crayfish, or even crème brûlée, and taste his Christmassy merlot, with its spicy notes of cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and

prune. We learn why he pays ten times the usual price for his Portuguese corks - that way none of his red wines are ever sent back - and it doesn’t take long for us to realise that even though La Petite Ferme is competing with billionaire neighbours, money isn’t everything. You don’t get the mostawarded merlot for ten years in a row without doing something special and La Petite Ferme clearly is.

The restaurant serves 160 covers at lunchtime every day, and their reputation is such that every one of their tables is booked six months in advance from September to May, three, between June and August, so if you want to go, book early and stay late. They

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have fifteen well-appointed rooms in which you can sleep off your lunch, but if there’s no room at the inn, they don’t mind if you decide to take your siesta, along with your picnic, on the lawn.

It was the little things that made our lunch at La Petite Ferme so special; the smell that greeted us as we entered the building; the butter that was served in a dish; the astounding view, the happy conversation from tables on all sides, and the charm of the staff, most of whom have worked for the family all their working lives. Little things perhaps, but it’s the little things that make it such a wonderful life on this little farm. www.lapetiteferme.co.za

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Disease is not La Petite Ferme’s only enemy. Troops of baboons steal almost a third of their grapes every year.

South Africa

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Cape Town

South Africa

For many visitors, South Africa begins and ends in Cape Town, and it’s easy to see why, because the world has few more strikingly spectacular cities. Spread out over the lower slopes of Table Mountain and bordered by the bright blue South Atlantic, Cape Town enjoys an enviable Mediterranean climate, has a rich cultural heritage and enough museums, art galleries, shops, theatres and restaurants to keep you busy for a week, which is about as long as it would take just to scratch the surface.

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a network of visitor information centres where you can pick up all the information you need about dining out, tours, public transport facilities and travel tips. Their main office is at the Victoria & Albert Waterfront, which is no accident because after Table Mountain itself, the V&A is the country’s premier tourist destination. www.tourismcapetown.co.za

Inaugurated in 1860 by Queen Victoria’s firstborn son, for more than a century Albert Bay was just a working harbour with a simple Add to that the other nearby jetty. The road that led there was attractions - the Cape Winelands, the city’s red light district, but all Robben Island, the Table Top that changed when the worldwide National Park and a string of craze for waterfront beautiful beaches dotted all redevelopment hit town in the around the peninsula - you could 90’s. Today it’s still all pumping be forgiven for looking no further, and jumping, but in a very but if time is pressing, you can different way. Now the waterfront squeeze the city’s highlights into a is an upmarket leisure couple of action-packed days. playground where visiting super Unfortunately that’s all the time yachts tie up alongside excursion we had, but we were lucky to boats, and thousands of tourists meet up with good friends who stroll from stylish eateries to uplive in the city and know it well, market boutiques. Helicopters and you can find their insider shuttle overhead, street guides to Cape Town later on in performers queue up to entertain this piece. you, and there’s live music from Cape Town Tourism is the bands of all kinds all day, seven organisation responsible for days a week. marketing the city, and they have Cape Town is still very much a city

of the sea. It’s an important stop on the world’s most prestigious yacht route, and the epic Volvo Ocean Race weighs anchor here in early November every year. But every day, more humble craft set sail on an equally thoughtprovoking journey to Robben Island, once a leper colony, then a notorious prison, and now a world heritage site, where South Africa’s most famous political prisoner, Nelson Mandela spent almost 19 years.

Although Robben Island has the status of a pilgrimage site, it’s not easy to get to. Access is restricted and only officially approved tours are allowed to put ashore for a three-hour tour. The sea can kick up rough too, so if you can’t get there for one reason or another, spend time instead at the Nelson

South Africa Mandela Gateway on the Waterfront where the films, photographs and other artefacts still have the power to chill the blood.

Nelson Mandela Gateway, Piazza Level, Clock Tower Precinct Tel:+27 21 413 4200 Email:thozamaj@robbenisland.org.za www.robben-island.org.za

Just a few yards away, but separated by an unimaginable distance in terms of political and social change, stands the enormous glass-roofed Victoria Wharf, a bright and buzzy temple to retail, where all the brands from all the world have gathered together for your shopping pleasure. A mall is a mall is a mall, but on a sunny day it’s a pleasant place to people watch.

Snack on sushi on the upper deck of the Harbour House Restaurant, and watch the crowds, the boats, and even the occasional inquisitive dolphin come and go.

If the hustle and bustle of the

Beau Travel Magazine Waterfront proves too much, then it’s only a short shuttle to Green Point, where the stylish five star Radisson Blu looks out over the Atlantic on Grager Bay. The smell of the sea is fresher here, and the view to the mountains wider. The marina is also much quieter, which is why it plays host to flocks of Antarctic Tern and the occasional family of Cape Clawless Otter, so it’s a great spot to enjoy a glass of Iona Sauvignon Blanc alongside the Radisson’s inexpensive Brasserie menu.

Espresso Lab.

Test Kitchen The Old Biscuit Mill, 375 Albert Road, Woodstock, Cape Town, 7915, South Africa Telephone: +27 21 447 2337 www.thetestkitchen.co.za

While The Waterfront is Cape Town’s main shopping centre, Bree Street, up by the Bo Kap, the lovely old Cape Malay quarter, is where the hipsters hang out. SAM (South African Market) on the first floor at 107 is a good place for cool and edgy clothes, bags and greetings cards as well as Radisson Blu Hotel Waterfront, homeware, jewellery, and gifts.

Cape Town The wonderfully named Skinny www.radissonblu.com/ laMinx showcases Heather hotel-capetown Moore’s lovely textiles, but Susie’s E-mail: capetown.reservations@ favourite boite was Swedish radissonblu.com fashion designer Alexandra Telephone: +27 (0) 21 441 3551 Höjer’s Atelier, which is very 52/53/54 rock’n’roll. A former warehouse, where the first thing you see is a If the V&A Waterfront is Covent vintage BMW motorcycle, it’s a Garden On Sea, then Woodstock strikingly original space, created is more like Camden. Always a by a very individual eye. racially mixed area, Woodstock www.alexandrahojer.com has a bit of edge to it, with a ALEXANDRA HÖJER ATELIER 156 thriving art scene and a vibrant BREE STREET CAPE TOWN 8001 market at the Old Biscuit Mill MONDAY - FRIDAY 10-5 where funky little shops sell jewellery, ceramics and stationery, SATURDAY 10-2 Go there on Saturday for vintage Telephone: +27 (0)21 424 1674 clothing, and organic street food at the weekly Neighbourgoods There are many things every Market. Woodstock is also home tourist is told they simply must do to the acclaimed and imaginative in Cape Town, and climbing Test Kitchen where tables are Table Mountain is the first of hard to come by, but if you can’t them. The country’s top tourist get in, check out their Saucisse attraction, the flat topped Deli, or if they’re chock-a-block mountain towers three and a half too, grab a coffee at their thousand feet above the city and

South Africa attracts two million visitors a year, most of whom take the sixty-five person capacity cable car that leaves from the station at the top of Kloof Nek Road, and arrives at the summit a mere five minutes later.

As well as awe-inspiring views over Table Bay and across to the neighbouring peaks of Lion’s Head and Devil’s Peak, you should see a few dassies scurrying about among the rocks, rabbit sized little creatures with shiny black eyes that look more like a well-fed guinea pig than the elephant which is their closest living relative. Their proper name is the Rock Hyrax and like the meerkat you’ve seen on the telly they’re intelligent and sociable little beasts. They put out sentries when they’re foraging to avoid their many predators, so keep your own eyes peeled, and look up: you might catch a glimpse of a Verreaux’s eagle, which is the dassie’s particular bête noire.

The weather on the mountain is famously changeable: as in Britain you can get all four seasons in one day, so a good rule of thumb is to head up there the very first time you can see the summit free from cloud, because that may not happen again during your stay.

Another must do is afternoon tea at The Nellie - the legendary and very luxurious Belmont Mount Nelson Hotel. Situated in sprawling gardens at the foot of

Beau Travel Magazine Table Mountain, this much-loved landmark has welcomed guests like Agatha Christie, John Lennon, and the Dalai Lama among others since it was built in 1899. The Nellie is the Grande Dame of the Cape Town hotels and it even has its own shade of paint– Mount Nelson Pink.

As for places to stay, there are more than six hundred hotels, but if money is no object, then the One&Only Cape Town is the one and only place for you. Bang in the heart of the V&A Waterfront with dramatic views to Table Mountain and Signal Hill, it’s where movie stars put up when they’re in town, and where you can dine in the only African branch of the famous New York restaurant, Nobu.

its five rooms and one especially glamorous suite, and there’s nothing that its staff, led by the charming Craig Kirby, won’t do to make your stay a success.

They really do go the extra mile here: when I asked for ice and a slice to go with the G&Ts from the bar in our room, they brought up a whole lemon, a champagne bucket full of ice, a knife and a chopping board! The food is good too. Our breakfast was so delicious we had exactly the same thing two days running: eggs Benedict, with smoked ostrich.

The Dock House is the former home of the Harbourmaster, so it’s a colonial building with airy spacious rooms, the best of which give onto a verandah that looks out over the garden and pool to On the other hand, if you’ve got the bustling Waterfront below. The more dash than cash, then do look is contemporary luxe, and its what we did, and check into the elegantly proportioned rooms are divine Dock House Boutique Hotel sensuously decorated with crystal & Spa just up the hill from the chandeliers, and soft, wall-to-wall Victoria & Albert Waterfront. One carpeting. The bathrooms are of Cape Town most intimate similarly vast, and fully kitted out boutique hotels, The Dock House with the obligatory double vanity hosts only ten guests at a time in units, walk-in power showers, and

South Africa

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South Africa

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delicious Charlotte Rhys toiletries.

There’s also a lovely big bath in which to lounge, ideal for those afternoons when the fog rolls in from the sea, and you just want to cuddle up and get cosy.

The Dock house Is the perfect base from which to access the city, but if you don’t want to get out and about, you can sunbathe in the garden, stretch out in the spa or enjoy a light lunch or snack at the poolside bar: this haven in the harbour really is heavenly.

Dock House Boutique Hotel & Spa www.newmarkhotels.com/accom modation/hotels/dock-houseboutique-hotel-spa/ E-mail: res@dockhouse.co.za Telephone: +27 (0) 21421 9334 The weather in Cape Town is very like home, as is much of the architecture, which is one reason that the city has long been a popular winter destination for London advertising agencies shooting TV commercials, and if it weren’t for the ubiquitous signs saying ‘armed response’ and the coils of barbed wire on high garden walls, you might think you were in Surrey.

The Southern Suburbs of Rosebank, Newlands, and Constantia are where the local Cape Dutch style rubs up against the Georgian and Victorian forms that came out from Britain, along with people like Cecil John Rhodes whose sprawling estate

and temple style memorial are also to be found here.

Rhodes was an extraordinary man. He was only 18 when he first staked a claim in the diamond fields of Kimberley, but by the time he died in 1906, he had changed the map of Africa, amassed a huge fortune, become a byword for imperialism, and given his name to a whole new country, Rhodesia, now of course better known as Zimbabwe and Zambia. There’s a little cottage behind his vainglorious memorial where you can have a cup of tea and meditate on the folly of ambition.

very first vines were planted in South Africa and where several estates survive today. Groot Constantia is the oldest and one of the loveliest in the country, and its grand Cape Dutch Manor House was built in the same year that the vineyard was planted, 1685.

This is wine production on a grand scale. There are nine different soil types on the 170 hectare estate, which produces twelve varietals, all hand picked for quality, before being given a gentle squeeze in their wine press en route the huge cellar where enormous Yugoslav oak barrels each hold up to 16,000 litres of Not far away, in the oak-lined wine. They fill half a million streets of Newlands you can find bottles a year and 40% of them the world-famous playing fields of come to Europe, so you can find Western Province Rugby, not far their wines here via Great from the Maynardville Open Air Wines Direct.

Theatre in Wynberg, which stages Tastings are conducted in a Shakespeare through the summer schoolroom like space where they months. Keep moving on and you showcase their wines with come to Constantia where the chocolates of different kinds: the

South Africa Sauvignon Blanc with guava flavoured white chocolate, the Pinotage with dark blueberry chocolate and the Shiraz with a spicy cinnamon and nutmeg mixture. I especially enjoyed their Gouverneurs Reserve, with its scents of cigar box, cherries and plums, but that’s no great surprise as it retails at around £25 a bottle here in the UK. www.greatwinesdirect.co.uk

Beau Travel Magazine butternut risotto, duck confit with fig and walnut, squid with ham and basil mayo, and salmon togarashi, so it wasn’t veramente español, but it was knockout, and we’d definitely go again.

of repute, we decided to have whatever he’d been having. That was a good call.

Chefs Warehouse 92 Bree Street, Cape Town City Centre Telephone:+27 21 422 0128 Hours:• 9:00 am – 8:00 pm

If like me you’re sceptical about Groot Constantia hotel restaurants, then suspend www.grootconstantia.co.za your disbelief: Dash Restaurant, Email: at the Victoria Hotel really is fine enquiries@grootconstantia.co.za dining at its best. Housed in a Telephone: +27 (0) 21 794-5128 high, cool, mirrored room, the vibe is contemporary, the service slick, and the menu mouth Man cannot live by fine wine watering. Chef Sam Wasserman alone and Cape Town has a wealth of choice when it comes to and her team dish up perfect food that is exquisitely presented. eating out. We enjoyed a very If South African TV ever buys into leisurely lunch at Chefs Warehouse on Bree Street where the Masterchef franchise, this girl’s going to be a contender!

Irish-born Liam Tomlin offers an Our neighbour at dinner, Bob ever-changing bill of fare in his from Arizona, was dining alone canteen-style street food bar, and as he was clearly enjoying his where diners are surrounded by meal, we got chatting and when shelves stuffed full of exotic we discovered he was on stage delicacies like crystallised rose petals in glass jars. Try what they two of a world tour where his call tapas: ours included oysters, route markers were all restaurants

As Bob, said, “The plating here is out of this world.” Susie’s rondel of Springbok fillet was perfectly medium rare, and sat in a garden composed of tiny towers of barely cooked baby carrots and stuffed baby onions. My crayfish tail came hot from the grill with rehydrated pineapple and a saffron orzo, and our chocolate fondant dessert - one between two please - delivered a splendidly squelchy climax. Dash has a confident kitchen, a wellchosen wine list, and great staff. It was sweetly serendipitous that our waitress was called Phimbiwe, which means ‘again’ in Xhosa: we’d go back to Dash in a flash.

Dash Restaurant & Bar V & A Waterfront, Cape Town, 8001 Telephone:+27 21 418 1475

The Insider’s Guide To Cape Town

South Africa

Mike Fitzgerald ‘The Curator’ sells very collectable mid century European and American design along with African Tribal art from his gallery space in Buchanan Square IN Woodstock. This is his Cape Town Top Ten

1.) Olympia Cafe in Kalk Bay. My favourite restaurant in Cape Town. Health and Safety back in Blighty would want to bomb it but it turns out fabulous breakfasts and meals, especially fish. It's 200m from the fishing boats and the perfect spot for a stroll.

Ambience: Cape casual. www.facebook.com/ OlympiaCafeKalkBay

2.) Sababa, top of Bree street for weekday lunch.

Eastern Mediterranean influenced healthy and tasty food. www.sababa.co.za 3.) Beau Constantia - Sushibox has spectacular views over the

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Constantia wine valley, and across False Bay. It’s perfect in the late afternoon/early evening for sushi and champagne. www.beauconstantia.com

4.) The much vaunted 'The Pot Luck Club' deserves all accolades it has received. Situated at the top of the silo in Woodstock, next to the Biscuit Mill. Book a long time in advance! www.thepotluckclub.co.za 5.) Koi at The Ambassador Hotel.

This incredible sundowner spot is perched on the rocks at Bantry Bay. Eurasian inspired food. Book a table at the window. www.koirest.co.za 6.) Bree Street.

Central Cape Town's happening street for shopping, food and local design. First Thursday of the month is the night for openings and other happenings. www.capetownmagazine.com/art s-culture/bree-street-cape-townshippest-street/104_22_17910

7.) Blank Projects.

Opposite the world-renowned Michael Stevenson gallery, and across the road from The Curator, Blank Projects has the best stable of young South African contemporary artists, such as Jaco van Schalkwyk, Jan-Henri Booysens, Kyle Morland and

Igshan Adams. www.blankprojects.com

8.) New Church Museum, Tamboerskloof. Rotating shows of the private collection of Piet Viljoen. ‘Nuff said. www.thenewchurch.com

9.) Lion's Head.

This is either a pleasant walk or a scary climb, depending on your

point of view. Either way, you get stunning views without having to use the cable car.

10.) San Bona Game Reserve, Western Cape. 3-4 hrs from Cape Town. 54 000 hectres of the Karoo, home to the Big 5. www.sanbona.com/propertyconte nt.asp?pageID=85 www.thecurator.co.za 4th floor The Hills Building Buchanan Square 160 Sir Lowry road CapeTown, 7925 Telephone:+27.21.461.4528 Moblie +27.76.112.0158

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Jonathan Freemantle’s Cape Town Top10:

Artist Jonathan Freemantle was born in Cape Town in 1978. After training in London, he has curated exhibitions with the likes of Juergen Teller, Rankin and Amanda Harlech and had solo shows all over the world. www.jonathanfreemantle.com

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Review-g1862926-d2469723Reviews-Scarborough_Beach-Scar borough_Western_Cape.

5.) La Perla restaurant, Sea Point.

My local, been here for ages.

Beautiful view, friendly staff (who have also been there for ages) and owned by the same family JONATHAN FREEMANTLE’S CAPE that own one of my favourite TOWN TOP 10: galleries, SMAC so the art on the walls is good too.

1.) My brother's bagel bar. www.laperla.co.za Max Bagels (named after my son, 6.) SAM (South African Market).

Maximilian) www.facebook.com/maxbagels Concept store on Bree St with a fantastic selection of local design, 2.) South African National Gallery fashion & etc. Above La Parada and the Company Gardens Restaurant which is always around it. The next show is by one buzzing of my favourite artists, a national www.ilovesam.co.za treasure, William Kentridge: www.iziko.org.za/calendar/event/ 7.) Commune.1 Gallery. william-kentridge-the-refusal-ofI've shown works here. Great time gallery run by Greg Dale & LeighAnn Niehaus in a former 3.) Skeleton Gorge, Kirstenbosch. undertaker/mortuary on Whale St. A magical walk up the back of www.commune1.com Table Mountain beginning at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. www.sanbi.org/gardens/kirstenbo 8.) Couvaloup. sch/virtualtour/kirstenbosch-nbg- Not technically Cape Town, but smuts-track-skeleton-gorge near enough. This is a fabulous guesthouse run by Laurent Bayard 4.) Scarborough beach. in a small town about an hour Magic, remote and not even that from Cape Town. www.couvaloup.co.za far from Cape Town CBD (1hr max). You're near the very tip of 9.) Drinks/tea/lunch at the Africa here and you feel it. www.tripadvisor.co.za/Attraction_ Mount Nelson.

It's also a great place for meetings. Quiet, secluded, timeless. www.belmond.com/mountnelson-hotel-cape-town

10. Johannesburg.

You can't do Cape Town and not do Jozi. I get so much inspiration up there. And particularly the Maboneng Precinct. I'm launching a gallery of my own there in a month called HAZARD. Watch this space... www.mabonengprecinct.com

The South W

Walker Bay and The H

Nowhere does the Indian Ocean crash into t than at Walker Bay, a coastal nature

by Tim M

Western Cape

Hemel en Aarde Valley

the coast of South Africa more spectacularly reserve in the South-Western Cape.

Maguire

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A

t its western end, the bay begins at the seaside town of Hermanus, where the Kein River flows through a series of lagoons into the ocean, and it ends in the east, above the Klipgat Caves, at the town of Gansbaai.

The southern right earned its name the hard way.

Slow-swimming and easy to approach, it floated after being harpooned so it was ‘the right whale to hunt’, and throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, their 18 metre, 60 ton carcasses provided vast quantities of oil for lamps, In between are seven miles meat for food, and baleen of white sandy beach, for everything from corsets broken up by rocky to horse whips. Only the limestone outcrops where advent of the International more than seventy Convention for the thousand years ago, our Regulation of Whaling in middle stone-age 1949 saved them from ancestors once foraged for extinction, and even today shellfish. some species, like their cousins the northern right Today’s strandlopers come whales are teetering on not to catch marine life, the edge, which is why if but to watch it. Gansbaai you do get a chance to see is known as the best place them, you really should to dive with great white appreciate just how lucky sharks, while Hermanus is you are. best known for great white wine, but whatever end of Both ends of the bay have the beach you choose, their merits. Hermanus is a Walker Bay is the best pretty seaside town with a place in the world for year-round holiday land-based whale atmosphere, and plenty of watching, because vineyards to visit nearby. throughout the winter, As befits the Whale hundreds of southern right Capital of the World, it whales gather here to boasts the world's only breed and to calve their whale crier, who scans the young. bay constantly and sounds

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a horn, strangely wrought from sea kelp, to alert whale watchers to a new arrival.

Gansbaai at the other end of the strand is the selfstyled Shark Capital of the World, and it offers great views from the top of the Klipgat Caves, and as it’s less busy than Hermanus, you might want to go there instead. I’d say go to both, and the whale lovers who come here from all over the world do precisely that.

There are about 4,000 southern right whales in the ocean, and a fair number of them migrate from their Antarctic feeding grounds to South Africa's coastline every year. While you can watch them from the terrace of The Burgundy restaurant, housed in Hermanus’s oldest building that dates back to 1875, most people head up the path to the cliff where they can get a gull’s eye view of these gentle leviathans as they come as close as 20 metres to the shore.

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The southern winter is peak season for cetaceans, culminating in the Whale Festival at the end of September, but whales can still be spotted as late as December. Southern rights aren’t the only ones you might see: Humpbacks turn up too, as do Bryde’s whales, and of course there are dolphins and cape fur seals which were all we saw as we arrived in January, but we didn’t mind too much because we were en route to one of the most extraordinary resorts South Africa has to offer: Grootbos, a luxurious private nature reserve created by the Lutzeyer family who have turned what was originally their holiday home into both a five star ecoparadise, and a leading centre for the conservation of the unique lowland fynbos, and the human and animal life that depends on it.

Grootbos means big forest in Afrikaans, and it was easy to see why as we took the short walk through the tangle of gnarled and ancient milkwood trees to our freestanding, wooden suite. It all felt very

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Sleeping Beauty: the narrow path winds darkly through the twisted, mossy branches, with no destination in sight until suddenly you arrive at the front door of your magic cave. Once inside you are in minimalist designer heaven: roll back the wall sized windows, and you’re out on deck, looking over a sea of fynbos that rolls down to Walker Bay, and the setting sun.

packed carefully, the estate’s own hexagonal glass jars of honey makes a wonderful souvenir.

Spring (European autumn) is the best time to arrive as that is when the fynbos is in flower and the hundred plus bird species are nesting, but whenever you come, you cannot help feel that Grootbos is a very special, very tranquil place.

Grootbos isn’t just about conserving plants, it’s Fynbos is low growing, and about improving lives, and at first glance looks a bit the Lutzeyer family has like a grouse moor, but done that by setting up The where we have just four Green Futures Initiative, a species of heather in the school where the UK, Grootbos has more disadvantaged young than six hundred. This is people from two local the heart of the Cape townships, Stanford and Floral Kingdom, and every Masakhane, are trained as day, guides will take you gardeners, cooks, on your own personal tour mechanics or household of the enchanted forest staff. Every year three lucky where you may see the graduates of the poison apple, and the programme are chosen to snake thistle, hear the call spend time at the Eden of the bokmakerie bird, Project in Cornwall, and and smell the blombos that my guide Bongani helps the estate’s bees to Mjokweni was one of produce two tons of honey them, but the Grootbos every year. Grootbos investment in people honey really is out of this doesn’t stop there. world, with an intoxicatingly heady I was intrigued to learn fragrance like no honey from Bongani that Michael you’ve ever tasted before: Lutzeyer had somehow

South Africa persuaded FIFA and Barclay’s Bank to co-sponsor the creation of a floodlit, all weather football field at Masakhane, where the local kids can develop their sporting potential too: it’s a huge change from the dustbowl where Bongani played as a child.

There are three different ways to stay at Grootbos. The Garden Lodge has freestanding thatched lodges built from stone and decorated with an African aesthetic. There’s also a private villa that sleeps twelve adults and comes with its own butler and chef, but we were more than delighted to stay at The Forest Lodge with its cuttingedge, international style design.

The main building has high ceilings, panoramic views to the far horizon, and a fabulous outdoor pool and sun deck, with a fire pit around which guests gather for delicious predinner cocktails. The colour palette of the lodge’s interior reflects its oceanic setting, and the focus of the kitchen is on ‘farm to fork’ as much of what is served - organic vegetables, eggs, pork, and of course, honey - is grown or harvested on the estate.

We might have dined that night in the romantic setting of the wine cellar where up to a dozen guests can be entertained surrounded by the Lutzeyers’ remarkable wine collection, but an even better surprise was in

Beau Travel Magazine store. As dusk fell, we followed a trail of candles through the milkwood trees to The Boma, a stockade deep into the forest lit by flickering storm lanterns, where we and our fellow guests enjoyed an open-air feast fit for a fairytale. The best part of our enchanted evening was when our sommelier, Bennett, led a choir of estate workers in an acapella concert of African songs. It was totally unexpected, absolutely magical, and their rendition of the national anthem, N’Kosi Sikelele Afrika, would have brought a tear to a glass eye.

The atmosphere of Grootbos is one of serene luxury, and it has a particularly lovely spa out in the woods where they are developing their own range of unique products in partnership with Africology, but if you’re feeling energetic, then there are plenty of activities on offer. You can gallop on horseback along Walker Bay to the sound of the surf, you can go out on 4x4 excursions, and of course whale watching and shark diving can easily be arranged, by both boat and plane. Quad bike tours offer a thrilling way to traverse the mountains, and the chefs will be only too happy to pack up a picnic for you to enjoy on one of the many Blue Flag beaches only a short drive away.

Grootbos is a paradise for birdwatchers and animal lovers

too. You can’t miss the male cape sugarbird, with its incredibly long tail as it feeds on the nectar of the protea flower, while the orange-breasted sunbird and the southern double-collared sunbird feed on the ericas, but as befits a dwarf forest, much of the animal life is hard to see.

The fynbos gives shelter to thousands of birds, insects, amphibians and reptiles, which is why a Cape Kestrel used the roof of our suite as a hunting post most days, and genet cats and caracal hunt no fewer than six different species of tiny antelope that are found on the reserve.

Grootbos is also one of the few places where you might just catch a glimpse of the extremely elusive cape leopard: I was told that the gate man sees one most nights, who curls up in a tree close by. The estate also uses camera traps to track and identify individual leopards and learn about their population status and range of movement, so have a word with the team and who knows what magical beasts you might encounter during your stay in this spellbinding place?

Grootbos Private Nature Reserve www.grootbos.com/en/home -Reservation details E-mail: bookings@grootbos.co.za

Creation Wines

Just half an hour out of Hermanus, at the end of a dirt road a thousand feet up the barren slopes of the Babylon Toren Mountain, sits the little miracle that is Creation Wines. When JeanClaude (JC) and Carolyn Martin set up there back in 2002, everyone thought they were crazy, but they knew they had something special.

Swiss-born JC had learned his craft as a wine-maker in France, and he realised that the unique combination of location and climate on the Hemel en Aarde ridge offered vast potential.

to work. Twelve years later, the Martins’ blend of imagination and determination has transformed this unlikeliest of sites into a perfectly formed boutique winery that regularly wins prestigious The soil there is 450 international awards, million years old - 60 and now welcomes million years older than more than 50,000 the soil in Burgundy visitors a year. and it had never planted before they set Creation takes

sustainability seriously.

When we arrived in their tasting room, Philip the maitre d’ declined to shake my hand because he had a chameleon on his finger, and he was in the middle of persuading it to clamber onto an orchid. They’re officially ‘predator friendly’ (the leopard sculpture in their courtyard was forged

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from 200 illegal gin traps they persuaded local people to hand in), and even the mulch that paves the path around the vineyard is made from recycled peach stones: no wonder they’ve received ‘The Green Seal’ as well as the coveted EnviroWines accreditation.

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grapes and a more intense flavour. The particular combination of altitude and sea breeze at Creation creates a cool climate and a slow growing period that makes it, in JC’s opinion, the Burgundy of South Africa.

A bubbly South African of Scots descent, Creation produce Carolyn joined us for fourteen wines, from lunch, which was great the affordable Whale fun because her energy Pod range to the and optimism is limited edition Syrah boundless, and the and Pinot Noir that tasting room was have won praise from buzzing as we enjoyed the influential American our imaginative wine wine writer, Robert and food pairings Parker. It’s a small where every wine was estate by local served in the standards, and JC and appropriate shape of Carolyn know every Riedel glass. The wines inch of it, which is why were sensational, and they plant Pinot Noir the cooking was both around the edges of imaginative and vineyard, because the exceptional. combination of soil structure and wind Their silky Sauvignonthere create smaller Semillon blend was a

knockout with the artichokes eggs Benedict; the earthy, warm cauliflower and gorgonzola soup brought out all the high notes from their Reserve Merlot and the rare roast Springbok with greens and valley mushrooms was simply delicious with their stellar Pinot Noir.

Creation Wines really have come up with a winning formula, and Carolyn and JC deserve their success, which has come from their special combination of inspiration, courage, and sheer bloodymindedness.

“When we started the winery,” she said, “My mum refused to come here. When we started the tasting room, JC said nobody would come to that either. But I knew that if we built it, they would come.

Today we’re getting fifty thousand visitors a year, and fifty families now depend on us for their living. It’s great to feel we’re giving something back to our part of the world”.

As we headed up to Cape Town after lunch, we found that the dirt road ahead of us was being transformed into a tarmac highway. That new road will make Creation easier to get to, but it will undoubtedly make it much harder to leave.

Creation Wines www.creationwines.com E-mail: info@creationwines.com Telephone: +27 (0) 28 212 1107

The Atlantic Seaboard

South Africa

The Cape of Good Hope is the southwesterly tip of the African continent, but when Bartolomeo Diaz discovered it en route to India, that wasn’t the first name he gave it. For reasons that will become obvious when you travel down the 34-mile stretch of coast that runs from Cape Town down to Cape Point, he called it ‘Cabo Tormentosa’: The Cape Of Storms.

Beau Travel Magazine

towards Antarctica and have an equally uneventful picnic by the lighthouse, but watch out for the baboons, which are seasoned muggers and will steal your sandwiches the second your back is turned.

www.hoerikwaggotrail.org/ hoerikwaggo-trail.html

Going back up the eastern side of the cape, you come to the old British Naval Base at Simon’s Town, where the principal attraction is the colony A less familiar, but much more of jackass penguins. Usually exciting way to get there would associated with the cold waters of Antarctica, these flightless be to follow the 54 mile birds are the only ones in the Hoerikwaggo Trail on foot all the way from Table Mountain. It entire African continent and as the shallow waters of Boulders takes five days, runs through Beach are warm enough to The Cape is where the Indian some breathtaking mountain venture into without a wetsuit Ocean and the Atlantic go scenery, and you spend your you really should take a dip: it head to head, and the titanic nights in a series of wellreally is the only place in the struggle between their currents designed tented camps so you world where you can actually creates waves that can be 100 can rough it in comfort, and swim amongst penguins, so it’s feet high. The rugged coast is the camp at Slangkop is an opportunity not to be littered with hundreds of wrecks particularly cool. missed. that over the centuries have It’s close to an old whaling come to grief on the treacherous reefs that skirt this station where they’ve created a Cape Town has several seaside beautiful garden, and hidden suburbs, of which Camps Bay is rocky shore, but Diaz survived their overhead lighting in the one of the smartest. Spread out them and in gratitude he sun-bleached and sea-sculpted in the shadow of the 12 renamed it ‘Cabo da boa vertebrae of whales. You can Apostles the town runs the Esperanza’, a decision for yomp the whole route carrying length of the beach, and it is which even now the South your own gear, or slackpack there, on the most desirable African Tourist Board is no and have your kit delivered stretch of its palm-tree-lined, doubt grateful. every evening: you can even Harley-Davidson-cruised The Cape is no longer a wrecking coast. Today we have drop in and do a single section croisette, that you will find if you don’t have the time, and South Beach Self-Catering SatNav, and every year more watch the sunbirds and Apartments. The clue is in the than 20,000 merchant vessels name. With its blonde wood sail uneventfully round the cape sugarbirds as they flit between floor, steel and leather on what has become one of the the clumps of scarlet dia furniture, blue neon sign and world’s busiest shipping lanes. uniflora, the Cape’s signature flower better known as the Art Deco lines, South Beach is Most tourists drive all the way Miami Nice. down to Cape Point to stare out Pride of Table Mountain.

South Africa Our well-appointed apartment was something of a halfway house between a 5 star hotel and a luxury home, which made it the perfect place to toy with the idea of returning to reality. It gave us the time to rediscover the simple joys of making our own bed, and putting plates into the dishwasher.

Each of the nine one-bedroom apartments has a kitchen with an oven, and all the cooking equipment you could possibly want or need. The fridge is stocked with milk, butter, orange juice, cheese, and jam along with beer, wine, and a packet of Pringles. There’s a Nespresso machine, there are candles in the bathroom, and the jar of bath salts even has its own designer wooden spoon.

There are international plugs and fast wifi access: there’s a chic grey fake-fur throw on the bed for those colder nights, and two black and grey steel and mesh chairs on the small balcony for those warmer ones.

Original art by Lionel Smit hangs on the wall. One floor below, the refracting pool winks at you like a David Hockney wet dream.

Small though it is, Camps Bay is cultured, and South Beach Apartments is on the same street as the town’s famous Theatre On The Bay. The programme offers a mix of local and international drama,

Beau Travel Magazine musicals, comedy and cabaret, and its mock-classical exterior is wonderfully swagged in billowing concrete stage curtains.

Much of the town is built in what you might call international contemporary style, and the newer houses all come with decks, pools and plate glass balconies, which is why they cost upwards of 15m rand each, but what’s great about Camps Bay is that the long, beautiful white sand beach is completely free and open to all. It gets busiest in the early evening, when young couples sit wrapped in each others arms, waiting for the sun to set before heading off for dinner at one of the town’s seafront restaurants. There are so many that you could eat somewhere different every night, but we gave them all a miss because we stumbled across somewhere so good, we had to go there twice.

tiger prawns and the hard to find West Coast rock lobster, better known as crayfish. The place is mobbed, the atmosphere is very laid back and friendly, and if you can’t get into the main room, they’ll do their best to squeeze you into their Sushi bar.

www.codfather.co.za 37 The Drive, Camps Bay, Cape Town, 8040, South Africa Phone:+27 21 438 0782 Hours: Open today • 12:00–11:00 pm

Outside of rush hour, Camps Bay is only half an hour from the centre of Cape Town. The most exciting route is up the twisty road that goes over the shoulder of Lion’s Head, but the easier alternative will take you through all the other resorts along the Atlantic Seaboard.

This stretch is known as Millionaires’ Mile, which is inaccurate on two counts in that the road is a good ten miles A restaurant in an upstairs long, and you need to be a room in a back street, The Codfather is an object lesson in billionaire to live there. The first hamlet you pass through is how to succeed by breaking every rule in the book. The food Clifton, where the real estate is even ritzier than Camps Bay, is simple and fresh, as is the service. There’s always a choice but there are four, imaginatively named beaches where you can of locally caught fish, straight from the char-grill, but the stars get some rays sheltered from the wind that whips this coast on the bars are the white king even in high summer. prawns that come from Madagascar, the even bigger langoustines that hail from Mozambique, the local giant

Beau Travel Magazine First Beach is where you’ll find the sun-worshippers; Fourth Beach is for families, Third Beach is for the teenagers, and the parties there go on till late in the night. Further along, past the even more desirable neighbourhood of Llandudno is Sandy Bay, where Cape Town’s nudists allegedly hang out, but as it’s a 20-minute walk from the car park, you may want to keep moving on until you come to Hout Bay.

Relatively secluded, and still largely unscarred by development, Hout Bay is still a working fishing port, as well as something of an artist’s colony.

Mariner’s Wharf has craft shops and a good seafood restaurant, but you should also check out the daily fish market where the elusive crayfish are landed before most of them are frozen, packed, and flown out to earn hard currency elsewhere. In its tiny mall, Hout Bay has an excellent independent bookshop, and a branch of the Woolworth’s chain, South Africa’s equivalent of Mark’s & Spencer, where their café serves a tasty light lunch alongside a addictively thirst-quenching drink called a Fresh Red made from a double-shot of caffeine-free Rooibos espresso and iced apple juice.

Hout Bay is opposite the awe-inspiring Chapman’s Peak. The Peak is part of the Hoerikwaggo Trail so you can hike it, but there’s also a 9-mile toll road, which is one of the most spectacular coastal drives in the world. The road is narrow and twisty, so it’s popular with cyclists and bikers, but it’s not for the faint-hearted. Winding like a snake between almost vertical slopes above and sheer drop-offs below, its 114 tight bends force you to keep your eyes on the road, so make frequent stops at the numerous parking spots where you can pull over, stretch your legs and savour the panoramic views.

Chapman’s Peak Drive crosses the Cape, coming out at Fishhoek, after which the road continues to hug the coast through the small towns of Kalk Bay, Muizenberg and St James that sit on the shore of False Bay. They’re pretty enough in an English seaside town in the 1950’s kind of way, but my advice would be to double back, because just before the road reaches Hout Bay, you will find Tintswalo Atlantic, one of the most romantic small hotels you could ever hope to visit. Just getting there is an adventure in itself.

The only lodge situated within the Table Mountain National Park, completely hidden from view, Tintswalo Atlantic perches just metres above the high tide line, on a deck made from balau wood that has been woven around a few gnarled and ancient milkwood trees from which hang crystal chandeliers that tinkle gently in the breeze. Only 24 guests can be accommodated at any one time, so it feels very private, and extremely special.

South Africa The only access is by a vertiginous track just wide enough for a golf cart, and when the hotel was built, every bit of it had to be carried down that same path, in a labour of love that was inspired by a very special spirit of place. Only half an hour from Cape Town, it feels like a desert island, albeit a very luxurious one.

The heart of Tintswalo Atlantic is its main deck, behind which sits an elegant lounge and dining room. A wooden walkway, lit at night by concealed LED lamps, links the core of the hotel to the ten suites, each of which is named after a different island, and decorated to match. The Greek inspired Ithaca is mood indigo, Madagascan Saint Marie, a dusky prawn pink, while ours, Antigua is blue and yellow Caribbean shabby chic: even the bathroom is stuccoed with hand-applied seashells. They take romance seriously here. When we arrive, our candles are lit, there is a poem on our pillow, and the words “I love you” are written in flowers across the foot of our super king size bed.

After cocktails, and complementary amuse bouches on the deck, where we watch the sun setting behind The Sentinel across the bay, dinner is served inside, at tables set with spotless white

Beau Travel Magazine linen and silver cutlery. Panga is the line caught fish this evening, but Mrs M has the Dorado, which comes with spiced potato wedges and a Greek salad with radishes in place of olives and balsamic dressing. I have a tender tournedos of beef big enough to feed a family of four that has been char-grilled to a perfect pink. Rose petals float in our foamy bath when we return, and a cluster of cowrie shells says, “congratulations”.

Lulled by the rhythmic crash of the surf, our sleep is deep and long and when we wake, a soft golden light is already sweeping the mist from the sea below our private balcony.

Back on the main deck, even the butter says hello to us at breakfast, which includes preserved figs with four kinds of cheese and every kind of pastry from plain croissants to pain au chocolate.

The sun doesn’t hit the hotel till around ten, so this would be an ideal time to go for a paddle, like the couple in the tandem kayak who power past us and off into the distance, but we take the pebble path along to the sun deck where candy striped beanbags provide a perfect vantage point from which to scan for cape clawless otters among the kelp forest. Above us towers Chapman’s Peak - the inspiration for the Mountain of Mordor in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings - and as the sun remorselessly rises, four black eagles queue up to catch a thermal, spiralling effortlessly higher and higher until they merge into the infinite, heavenly blue.

NB About two months after we stayed, Tintswalo Atlantic was consumed by a wildfire that spread across the Cape Peninsula, causing massive damage but no loss of life.

Michelle du Plessis, MD of Tintswalo Atlantic has pledged to re-open by the end of 2015, although possibly in a new location.

Tintswalo Atlantic www.tintswalo.com/atlantic/ E-mail: res3@tintswalo.com Telephone: +27 (0) 21(0) 11 300 8888

Tintswalo Safari Lodge

Not only does the Kruger have the greatest diversity of wildlife on earth, it also has the world’s greatest concentration of luxury safari lodges. They’re not cheap, but what makes them worth every penny is that they combine the breathtaking design, exceptional cuisine and high-thread-count bed linen that you expect with the kind of up close and intimate encounters with rare animals that you simply won’t find anywhere else. It was that combination of adrenaline and indulgence we were looking for as the climax to our ‘holiday of a lifetime’, and we found it at Tintswalo Safari Lodge.

Tintswalo sits at the heart of a 100 square mile private estate in Manyeleti, and as our guide Fritz Breytenbach tells us, its prime location between Sabi Sands, Timbavati, and the Kruger guarantees great game viewing. At any given time, you’re sharing that vast expanse of wild land with no more than a dozen other people, so effectively you have the savannah to yourself, and feel the master of all you survey.

bleached timber walkway through a screen of trees that opened up to reveal an extraordinary curved building, like a huge beehive made from pale, un-mortared stones.

Inspired by the long-lost ruins of Great Zimbabwe, the lodge manages to look both ancient and modern at the same time, and it’s a stunning piece of architecture. That vision of history and adventure informs the whole project and it’s most fully expressed in the lodge’s six spacious suites, each decorated in elegant, period style and Fritz has been a safari guide for each named after a different fifteen years, his mantra is “do 19th century explorer. something that scares you every day”, and on our hour-long trip Our was called Speke, named from the airstrip, he gently but for the man who risked life and thoroughly grilled us about limb to discover the source of what we wanted to see on our The White Nile. The reception safari so he could ensure that room was big enough for every day at Tintswalo was World Series baseball, and we filled with exciting surprises. could have entertained half a The first was when we arrived dozen guests to dinner at the at Tintswalo, and followed our huge mahogany table. hostess Ronel along a raised, The focal point of the spacious

bedroom was a huge fourposter bed with a carved wooden headboard, swathed in mosquito nets, because Manyeleti is a malaria area.

Outside was our private deck with its very own plunge pool, and beyond the bedroom was the elegant oval bathroom where a lovely old Victorian roll-top bath shared space with a very up to the minute, glass and chrome indoor/outdoor shower. No Victorian explorer I’ve ever read about enjoyed such luxury.

After unpacking, we strolled back to the lodge’s main deck to sip delicious homemade

110

South Africa lemonade in the welcome shade of the towering, six hundred year old sycamore figs around which the lodge is built.

You can and will spend some time on foot at Tintswalo, but all the game drives here begin in the back of an open, fourwheel drive Toyota Landcruiser.

Susie and I were just Ours started peacefully exchanging that glance that enough. The late afternoon sun says, ‘this place is amazing’ was gilding the gently rippling when on the far side of the grass as we rumbled past a grove the trees parted like a great herd of buffalo taking theatre curtain, and out of the their ease in a lush meadow: forest emerged a huge male with different cattle, it was a elephant, who slowly but scene that Constable might deliberately walked straight have painted. Then it got a bit towards us, and stopped only more exciting as we followed feet away to drink from a some fresh lion tracks towards borehole below the deck. a wooded gully. Our tracker Magical is the English word that M’Po reckoned that a pride was describes how we felt at that lying up there in the shade and moment, but Shangaan has a he’d just got down from the better one: ‘tintswalo’ which jump seat to take a look when means “the intangible feeling Fritz got a call over the radio. of love, gratitude, and peace ‘Hold onto your hats’ he said, that you bestow upon someone gunning the engine. ‘We’re who has given you a going to see a leopard,’ and meaningful and worthy gift”. with that he took off, leaving M’Po behind - without a rifle.

We were in a bit of a daze after that. I remember that our tasty I felt bad about leaving him, lunch of pulled pork but not for long because I was sandwiches and penne with on the most exhilarating drive meatballs came with a Greek of my life. The Landcruiser is salad and potato and spinach built like a tank, but it can fairly fritters, and that it was served shift when it has to, and for the alfresco on stylish, wooden next forty-five minutes we Zulu meat platters. I also lurched, bumped, and crashed remember looking up, as we across the trackless savannah. lay by our private pool, to see a Much of the terrain at Tintswalo troupe of macaque monkeys is rolling grassland, which peering down from the trees at could be down to Fritz’s driving, Susie, sunbathing in the because he uses the dappled afternoon light. It was Landcruiser like a lawnmower, absolutely blissful, but all too and doesn’t go round trees and soon, it was time to go and bushes, so much as through start having fun. them. Eventually he slowed to a

Beau Travel Magazine walking pace, and there, below an acacia tree, was a fully grown female leopard, her mouth open, her sides heaving with the effort of killing and half-eating an impala. She ignored us completely for the thirty minutes we spent in her company, as she went through her stretching routines, and we sat whispering excitedly and taking picture after picture.

First she lay on her back, like any domestic kitten inviting you to tickle its belly. Then she rolled onto her side, yawned, and stretched out a languid leg, tipped with lethal claws. Then she lay on her tummy again and dropped her head onto her forelegs, licking them with her great pink tongue, and twitching her great white-tipped tail back and forth. She was compellingly beautiful, utterly spellbinding, and supremely indifferent to our presence.

Mind you, had anyone got out of the Landcruiser and presented her with a distinct human shape, things would have been very different, but that is the wonderful thing about vehicle based safaris: the animals don’t see you, all they see is what they’ve learned is just a harmless piece of machinery. It was a much slower drive back as the sun went down, but that wasn’t our last surprise of the day.

In the middle of nowhere, in

the pitch darkness, we saw a distant point of light. As we drew closer that point blazed into a bonfire, and then, by the light of a circle of storm lanterns we saw a cocktail bar, laid out with wine and beer, hard liquor, soft drinks and a mouth-watering array of barbecued delicacies. Our next surprise was that M’Po was there to greet us, which was a relief, but he assured us that he had been perfectly safe all the time.

“When I was a child”, he said “my father took me into the bush and he taught me how to speak to all the animals, especially the dangerous ones.

I can speak to the lion. I can speak to the leopard. So if I meet them, I know what words to say”.

By now of course, M’Po had us

all absolutely entranced, so I asked him, “What are those words?” M’Po looked me straight in the eye. “The first words I say,” he said, “Are Oh Shit…”

I have no idea what time we got back to the lodge in time to change for dinner, which was served in the wine cellar and featured red wine braised oxtail, rosemary rubbed lamb chops and an outstanding Rickety Bridge Pinotage. I also have no idea what time we got to bed either but I do know we were up and raring to go at five the next morning.

It was overcast, but that didn’t matter, and our day began really well when we came across a pair of young, darkmaned male lions, who were looking for a fight. They could

tell that another pair of males had been on their manor, so they were casting about for their trail, running purposefully and roaring fit to burst, their golden eyes gleaming with rage. It was incredibly exciting, but then it became incredibly frustrating when my camera died because I’d forgotten to recharge the battery.

Then it began to rain, so we spent some time under our ponchos down at the Jordaans dam, watching water buck, crocodile and water fowl before the sun reappeared and Fritz decided it was time for us to look for ‘a needle in a haystack’.

South Africa Cheetahs are among the ten most endangered animals in Africa. They are the fastest land animal in the world, but they’re also the smallest of the big cats which means they are easily robbed of their prey and their cubs by other predators, so they are as vulnerable as they are beautiful, with their distinctive spotted coats and the piratical black stripe that run from their eyes to their ears.

We knew that our chances of finding one were slim, but after scouting around for half an hour or so, during which we followed a family of ostrich and came across an elephant shrew, one of the most elusive of ‘the small five’, Fritz saw something on the far horizon.

We then drove for another ten minutes to see what it was and sure enough, on a small rise at the top of a grassy mound we found her.

When we arrived, the cheetah stretched and posed for us like a supermodel before coming

Beau Travel Magazine down from the hill and sloping off, hips swaying through the grass, sometimes coming within a few feet of the jeep. After a while we left her to hunt in peace, and made our way back home, or so we thought until Fritz pulled over into a dry riverbed, where he and M’Po proceeded to cook us a bush breakfast. It was the full Kruger: fruit, yoghurt and granola followed by sausage, bacon, mushroom, grilled red peppers and eggs served with a bottle of beer, and while it was yet another wonderful Tintswalo moment, the best was still to come.

As we reversed the Landcruiser up the side of the riverbed, Susie turned in her seat to see the cheetah just a few yards away, apparently walking towards us. Fritz turned off the engine, grabbed his camera, and ran down the riverbed where he squeezed off a few frames as she softly padded just inches away from the

Landcruiser, down into the riverbed and up the hill on the far side. Before she reached the crest, she stopped, turned, and looked at us gravely for half a minute before turning again and pacing slowly on, up, and out of our sight, leaving us speechless.

Being on safari at Tintswalo was like being a six-year old kid again: we wanted to be wide-awake all the time, and everything we saw was fascinating. It was only the grown-up bits of us that occasionally regretted we didn’t have much time to luxuriate in our surroundings, which really were magnificent. What we will never forget was that Tintswalo made us feel like friends rather than guests: that was a gift beyond price and it’s something we will treasure forever.

South Africa

M

ost visitors to South Africa come here for the wildlife and while it’s true that you can go on safaris of various kinds all over the country, the place we’ve all heard of is the 20,000 square kilometres of true wilderness that goes by the name of The Kruger National Park.

Safari: An introduction

Beau Travel Magazine

For a start, there’s The Magnificent Seven (all the above, plus the charismatic cheetah and the increasingly rare African Wild Dog).

At the other end of the scale are The Little Five, most of which are much One of the world’s oldest and harder to find, let alone see: the largest nature reserves, the park was elephant shrew, ant lion, rhinoceros created in 1898 by the then beetle, buffalo weaver, and leopard president Kruger, who realised that tortoise. Then there’s the Marine Big hunting threatened to destroy the Five, whose cast includes the delicate eco-system. Since then, a lot southern right whale and the great of work has gone in to create a bio- white shark, and - let’s not forget diversity hotspot the size of Wales, the Big Six birds, featuring the that allows the animals to move lappet-faced vulture, and the freely across the land as they have saddle-billed stork. I hope you take done since the dawn of time. my point. Forget about lists, just keep your eyes and ears open: The Kruger is synonymous with there’s an awful lot to see here. safari, and it is the place to go to see the animals collectively known as the Safaris vary greatly in terms of Big Five. That phrase was coined by activities, comfort and cost so before former US President Teddy Roosevelt you go, you should ask yourself to describe the game animals that some questions, along the following were hardest to track and kill, rather lines. than the most dangerous: that What’s the daily schedule? distinction belongs to the Or, “Will my hippopotamus, which kills more husband/wifeappropriate really be people in Africa than any other happy to get up before sunrise to go mammal. walking for three hours?”

What kind of animals will I see?

Because they’ve been the stars of Or, “If I don’t see a leopard on day countless wildlife documentaries, most people know The Big Five: lion, one, will I wish I’d been playing golf?” elephant, Cape buffalo, leopard, Apart from lunch, what else can I do and rhinoceros, but there are other in between drives? Not all lodges lists worth getting to know. will have pools, wi fi and Internet access: some won’t even have mains electricity. Check it out with your tour operator.

South Africa

What vaccines do I need? Malaria isn’t something to worry about in most of South Africa, but it’s still very much present in some parts of the Kruger during the rainy season, so check with your GP, get your vaccinations, and start taking your pills before you arrive.

What should I pack? Don’t leave home without travel insurance – some lodges may insist you have it.

One pair of 10 x 42 binoculars is all you need between two people: we hired Swarovskis from The Safari Store, and they were magnificent.

You will also need a torch to stop you from stepping on snakes or scorpions after dark, and their LED Lenser range is state of the art.

Remember to buy a couple of adaptors for South Africa’s round, three-pin plugs, and some kind of portable battery recharger for your phone or iPad.

Beau Travel Magazine Sunscreen www.thesafaristore.co.uk/products/p rotect-yourself/from-thesun/safarisuntrade-sunscreen

CLOTHING Let’s start at the bottom and work up. For the Kruger, you’ll need a good pair of comfortable walking shoes and a pair of flip-flops. Below the neck, almost anything goes, but if you want to look good and feel cool, a safari shirt and trousers is all you really need. The best stuff (like the Rufiji Range from The Safari Store) is treated to deter biting insects, and it works. Better still, it’s comfortable, light, and made from a wicking fabric that keeps you dry.

We can’t recommend it highly enough www.thesafaristore.co.uk/products/w omens/all-womens-safari-clothing

It can be cold before dawn and after dark, so a lightweight fleece is generally a good idea, especially in winter. It does rain sometimes, so a What should I wear? waterproof windbreaker and pants Make up is optional: insect repellent, will allow you to stay out there when and sunscreen are not. The Safari everyone else wants to go back to Store’s RID has been specifically camp. designed for Sub-Saharan Africa: it has been proven to work against And given that you’ll be spending a mosquitoes and even some species lot of time in some kind of openof tsetse fly. We found that it worked topped 4-wheel drive vehicle, the well: I didn’t get a single bite in four right hat is crucial. Baseball caps days and nights. Their sunscreen is blow off, and you don’t want to be good too, and they sell them the person who made us miss the bundled together. leopard because we had to stop and pick yours up, do you?

RID www.thesafaristore.co.uk/products/p The best one for all weathers is The rotect-yourself/from-bitingTilly Hat, not least because it has a insects/rid-insect-repellent chinstrap. It may not be the most

flattering headgear in the world but it will keep the rain off your hair, the sun out of your eyes, and it will stay on your head even when you’re in hot pursuit of a hartebeest.

When is the best time to go? In the rainy season, from October to March, the grass is high, so there are lots of newborn babies and the animals are in good condition, but they may be harder to see in all that greenery. In the dry season, from May to September, animals depend more on waterholes and rivers, which makes them easier to see, but it’s very dry and dusty, and cold in the early morning.

What kind of camera should I bring?

Most of the award-winning photographs of wildlife that made you want to go on safari in the first place were taken by skilled professionals who spent months in the bush waiting for that one great shot. A lot of your photos will be taken before the sun comes up and they will mostly feature vegetarians grazing. But don’t let me put you off.

Get the best camera you can afford, with a reasonably long lens, and get to know it well before you leave.

If you still want to go, then find out all you can about your guide: does he (there are female guides, but most are still men) have a qualification? How long has he been working? Does he publish a blog you can read?

South Africa

Beau Travel Magazine

People pay a fortune for safaris but they often don't take the right kit to make the most of their trip, which is about as mad as going skiing without proper ski gear, so I had a chat to Steve Adams, the guy who runs Safari Store to get his advice.

TM “On the spur of the moment you decide to go on safari in Africa, but you can pack only 5 things.

What are they?

bottles of RID Insect Repellent and SafariSUN sunscreen (bites and bad sunburn can really ruin your safari); a long sleeved shirt and trousers with great technical performance, like our Rufiji MaraTech SafariElite Long Sleeve Shirt and Rufiji Zip-Off Safari Trousers. I literally live in the shorts SA The first thing I would section of my Rufiji trousers and the option to grab is a good pair of 10x42 binoculars. They’re wear them as trousers your number one safari when it gets chilly is very essential, and they’re why handy). And if I can have one more thing, I’d pack we started our rental my iPhone, as I have some service. We wanted to great apps for birding, ensure that all our safari clients took binoculars with tracking and identifying them. I own both the trees.

Swarovski EL 42's and Vortex Diamondback 10 x TM Lots of people say that cotton is a good fabric to 42's. I would probably wear if you're travelling favour the Swarovski's for somewhere hot. What do most trips simply due to the incredible optics - and you suggest? the fact that I can take SA There is nothing wrong great photos through the lens using my iPhone and with cotton, in the same way that there would be adaptor.

I would then pop in a few nothing wrong with using

under the arms and down the back when someone is wearing a cotton garment.

Our MaraTech fabric only retains 4% of the water it absorbs before releasing it into your immediate environment, so the water is moved away from your skin much faster, keeping you cooler. This movement of water is known as wicking. Add to this finishes like SPF50+ and bug repellency and you quickly see why the manmade fabrics of today are way ahead of cotton.

a typewriter to write your article. But as with the world of word processing where computers now rule the roost, fabric technology has moved beyond cotton to better things. The key to a great garment is the way in which it reacts to your body's cooling and heating processes. Lets take TM I've heard that you perspiration as an shouldn't wear example. camouflaged clothing in some African countries. Is Your body perspires to this true? keep you cool. An all cotton garment retains SA This is true. Fashion approximately 20% of the police aside, it is illegal to water - ok, sweat - it wear camouflage clothing absorbs before allowing it in many African countries. to be released to your immediate environment.

TM Is it OK to wear a This is why you will often brightly coloured T-shirt on see dark sweat patches a walking safari?

South Africa SA I am often asked this question, and usually the person asking me phrases it as follows: "I have been to Kenya on safari. Why do you suggest that we wear neutral or natural tones, when every single Maasai tribesman wears bright red shukas?" The answer is pretty simply.

The Maasai are pastoralists whose main concern in the bush is to protect themselves and their herds of cattle from predators. They don’t want to blend in; they want to be as conspicuous as possible!

When on safari, you are there to watch animals behaving as animals - and not reacting to you every time you step into the bush. When I did my big game walking safari training. the main aim of our training was to watch elephant, rhino and buffalo doing what elephant, rhino and buffalo do when humans are not around.

The key is to remain unseen, and in fact we were failed on our walks if a single pair of eyes in a herd of buffalo spotted us.

The clothing you select helps you to remain unseen. It increases the

Beau Travel Magazine chance that you will view natural behaviour and not the backside of an elephant as it charges away from you in a cloud of dust, into a thicket never to be seen again (or - in a worst case scenario charges towards you!)

The answer lies in what animals see. I stand to be corrected but I believe that some animals see in pastel shades and others in black and white. Therefore the tone of a red shirt may not stand out if the animal you are viewing sees in black and white. The two no-no colours are in actual fact black and white, with white being the worst colour to wear in the bush. Think of the colour prey species display when they alarm call or are running away from predators and are trying to stay in a herd - it is white. Look at the backside of most antelope - Springbok are a great example of this. White stands out the most.

TM Is it okay to wear perfume or scented deodorant or body lotion when I go walking in the bush?

SA If it is Ralph Lauren Safari then it must be ok, surely? I think our 'human smell' is strong enough to

be picked up by most animals. We have been hunting them for centuries.

To be honest I am not sure whether a cologne or strong smelling perfume increases the chances of being smelled, or hides the human odour? I think I may just have to do some more field-testing. Perhaps back to the bush for me then.

TM On that note, where are you going to next in Africa?

be faced by long portages around rapids, strong currents, and more than our fair share of hippos and crocs. You can see our trip report from an earlier expedition to get an idea of what we get up to by going to www.thesafaristore.co.uk/

uk/okavango, and follow our upcoming expedition from July onwards on our SA I am really glad you asked. Each year we go on Facebook page: a full-blown expedition to www.facebook.com/ thesafaristore. product test our clothing and gear. Our aim is to STEVE ADAMS have every item we sell THE SAFARI STORE TEAM thoroughly tested so that The Safari Store Ltd we are confident that our clients travel with only the Essential Travel & Safari Supplies best items. This year we service@thesafaristore.co.uk are attempting a big first. www.thesafaristore.co.uk Sailing a Hobie Tandem Tel: +44 Island Kayak upstream, (0) 207 193 4751 yes upstream, from Victoria Falls.

We want to try find Ngonye Falls, which is the first major waterfall David Livingstone discovered on the Zambezi. We are going upstream, as we want to travel in the spirit of the explorers of yesteryear who always went upstream. As with their epic travels, we will

South African Music

South Africa

One thing you’ll notice pretty quickly is how little indigenous music is played in bars, restaurants, and hotels on the tourist trail. It was only when we visited Grootbos and were serenaded by their acapella choir that we noticed what we’d been missing all along. Luckily we also met Maurice, AKA Mncedisi Ncedani who opened our minds and ears to some great sounds.

Maurice is an actor, singer, composer and jazz DJ who counts Tina Turner among his fans. These are his Top Ten Tips for a musical introduction to South Africa.

Beau Travel Magazine

Stimela were international superstars at the height of apartheid

MANGO GROOVE -BEST OF Mango Groove’s magical blend of Marabi, Kwela and pop influences has captivated audiences around the world

THE SOIL - NOSTALGIC MOMENTS The Soil were a 4 member acapella group but there are only three of them at the moment: they often credit god as being the invisible fourth.

Buhlebendalo Mda (Soil Sister), Ntsika "Fana-tastic" Ngxanga and Luphindo Ngxanga Follow him at his Facebook (Master P). Ntsika and page Jazz Train Live Luphindo are biological www.facebook.com/pages/Jazz brothers. trainlive/ 580301145365871?fref=ts SHEER ALL STARS - INDIBANO Some of the finest South STIX HOJENG - KO KASI African jazz musicians pulled 12-track debut Jazz album together as a working band by produced by producer, Sheer Sound MD Damon composer and pianist Forbes extraordinaire, Stix Hojeng Freshly Ground - Radio Africa Is the fourth album from this band of seven talented and diverse musicians who hail from South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

STIMELA LIVE IN CONCERT 25 YEARS

ERIC PALIANO CHITUKUTUKU Born in Malawi in 1975, Erik Paliani is a guitarist, composer and producer who’s worked with Hugh Masakela among other greats.

HUGH MASAKELA -PLAYING @ WORK The senior statesman of South African music, Masakela was married to Miriam Makeba and has played with everyone from Abdullah Ibrahim to Paul Simon SIBONGILE KHUMALO QUEST. Sibongile Khumalo is South Africa’s first lady of song.

LOUIS MHLANGA TINGANEKWANE Louis Mhlanga is a highly accomplished musician from Zimbabwe whose guitar playing has been compared to Jimi Hendrix.

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