Private Edition/Lew Geffen Sotheby’s International Realty 15

ISSUE 15

MIND OVER MATTER

GREY MATTERS RUNNING MAN LOW FLYING ALL MIGHTY BRAIN HEALTH: THE NEW DEFINITION OF WEALTH

RYAN SANDES DEFIES THE ODDS AND RUNS WILD

ON TRACK: MCLAREN’S FIRST ROAD CAR

ELEPHANT-BACK NIGHT SAFARI

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CONTENTS

16 10

12

ED’S LETTER

28

MEDICATION IN MOTION

SA’s first Wealth Summit – the third largest in the world – cuts to the core of the luxury market’s mindset.

The key to exceptional health and longevity? It’s all in the way you move.

TAND-OUT YIELDS S IN A FLAT LANDSCAPE

30

EVEN STEVENS

The worlds of wine and watches are both looking East.

How to find good yields without incurring undue risk.

14

PSST From the latest haute horlogerie watches to high fashion on every level, this is what you need to know.

24

32

THE PETER PRINCIPLE

It’s no surprise that Bond loved them, and the new Bentley Continental GTC is a star in its own right.

36

04

LOW FLYING hen Formula 1 giant McLaren W develops a road car, you sit up and take notice. Or better yet, you take it for a spin.

This Grand Chef has made his mark in the kitchen – and the international gastronomes know it.

26

EEPLY, MADLY, D BENTLEY

POCKET POWER

40

A top jockey shares the secrets of riding success in this competitive arena… and then some.

Catching up with ultra-trail runner Ryan Sandes opens up a world of unbridled passion.

P R I V A T E E D I T I O N ISSUE 15

THE RUNNING MAN

Cover shot by Jacques Weyers, represented by Vistech.

Katryn Kruger is represented by Y Models. Antique lace top R2 200. Reindeer. Styling: Suzannah Garland.

Hair and make-up: Merle Titus, represented by Infidels.

Shot on location at Val de Vie Wine Estate. Post-production: Set Digital and Blink

CONTENTS

54 Katryn wears a Louis Vuitton dress (price on request) and bracelet R6 150, also Louis Vuitton. Devin wears a patch-pocket jacket R7 750, Paul Smith; striped polo shirt R1 495, Burberry; purple polo shirt R450, Superdry at Union Made; vintage spotted cravat R1 820, Paul Smith; denims R1 995 and belt R995, both Gant.

Stockists listed on page 60

mental strength? It seems golf’s something of a mind game.

50

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

The most important status symbol for 2012 isn’t lineless skin or a youthful body, but a brain that’s firing on all cylinders.

54

THOROUGHBRED

Eighteen months ago, Katryn Kruger

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was a 15-year-old netball enthusiast from Tygerberg. Now, she’s worth around R200 000 a day.

64 AN MTN INITIATIVE Social responsibility goes mobile – literally and figuratively.

68 TRAVELLER BUCKET LIST From Botswana’s sweeping deltas to Camp Jabulani’s gentle giants, Southern Africa is brimming with pristine destinations.

78 HIGH SOCIETY The Veuve Clicquot Masters Polo and Elizabeth Arden’s latest line-up.

80 SNAP JUDGEMENT How to maintain your bush cred and shoot (photographs) like a pro.

PHOTOGRAPHY: JACQUES WEYERS

48 SHRINKS ON THE LINKS Physical prowess, technique or

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CONTRIBUTORS

GRANT ATKINSON

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JACQUES WEYERS

Born in the Transkei and raised in Durban, Jacques spent 12 years of his life in board shorts, breezing his way through high school and living for endless summers and perfect waves. From not having a care in the world (as long as summer and waves prevailed), he’s moved on to being ‘an obsessed photographer chasing an inexplicable passion and the creative process that is photography’. A decade of pursuing this love-hate obsession has apparently pushed him to the brink of madness and in the pursuit of artistic fulfillment, his beloved board shorts were sadly never used. Now, after more than a decade of living in four cities and doing commercial work that stretches across the globe, he’s returned to African summers to rekindle the freedom of his youth.

PAUL MCNALLY

As a youngster, Paul watched Formula 1 hoping that his dad’s girlfriends would think he was cool. In fact, a Portuguese lady weeping on the couch next to him is how he remembers Ayrton Senna’s death. The girlfriends never stuck, but Paul’s passion for F1 did. Although his own cars have rarely been free of dents and general leaks, he’s always felt that given the right equipment, he’d be able to soar in F1 style.

For this issue, McLaren gave him the chance to do just that when they invited him to the McLaren Technology Centre, where he took their first road car for a spin. Apart from contributing to Private Edition, Paul’s written extensively for publications like Men’s Health and The Guardian.

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

A freelance guide, wildlife photographer and writer, Grant lives in Cape Town with his wife Helena. He first took up photography with the aim of merely recording interesting wildlife behaviour, but the hobby soon grew. Twelve years spent living and working as a guide in the wildest regions of northern Botswana gave him many opportunities and he now enjoys all forms of nature photography – from capturing mammals and birds to landscapes and macro shooting. He believes that the more you know about your subject’s behaviour and your camera, the easier it becomes to get good results. His images have been on the cover of both Africa Geographic and the US National Geographic Kids magazine and he regularly writes for Africa Geographic, Africa Birds & Birding and Pix. He runs workshops training people in the use of photographic software and also spends several months every year conducting photographic safaris in remote and unspoilt places. For more on his work, visit www.grantatkinson.com.

FROM THE ED’S HEAD

EDITOR LES AUPIAIS privateedition@tppsa.co.za PUBLISHER MARK BEARE CREATIVE AND FASHION DIRECTOR SUZANNAH GARLAND MANAGING EDITOR DEBBIE HATHWAY COPY EDITOR RIEKIE HUMAN

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disadvantaged South Africans can benefit directly from the ‘gold rush’. Well-conceived and managed philanthropy in Africa make business sense and mean success for both giver and receiver.

And on that note... Katryn Kruger, on this issue’s cover, is making headlines in the fashion capitals of the world after completing 43 shows in four weeks. The very happy girl, who turns 17 this April, now earns an average of R200 000 a day for a major shoot – her new wealth currently managed by her understandably vigilant father. She has what the international fashion gurus define as ‘class’ and a look that’s hard to fabricate just with smart stylists. She’s the real McCoy. Private Edition commissioned her for our cover and on location at Val de Vie Estate, we found her caught between wanting to finish her studies and becoming the fashion world’s next big thing. What’s unusual about her is her humility and grounded approach to fame. That she’ll become a supermodel is without question, but she’ll also be SA’s newest luxury export in a fiercely competitive market.

Katryn may have been born with all the right stuff, but can we be more clever by exercising our brains?

Doctors and scientists think so. We explore the notion of the ‘ageless’ brain in ‘A Beautiful Mind’ (page 50). Is the phenomenal success of ultra-trail runner Ryan Sandes a product of mind over matter? ‘The Running Man’ (page 40) may explain a little of the madness behind the pursuit of extreme prowess in sport.

Luxury comes in many guises in Private Edition and not always in beautiful, high-priced goods. We agree: if you’ve earned it, spend it; but we’ll continue publishing what we believe is intriguing, strategically important and enriching.

ADVERTISING SALES MANAGER NIC MORKEL 021 488 5926 082 468 6490 nmorkel@tppsa.co.za ADVERTISING SALES EXECUTIVES SAMEEGHA SAMAAI 021 488 5938 078 356 9521 ssamaai@tppsa.co.za SIMON TULLY 021 488 5944 083 500 4888 stully@tppsa.co.za AD SALES COORDINATOR SIMONE JACOBS 021 488 5928 sjacobs@tppsa.co.za EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS MARK BEARE, JOHN MORKEL HR MANAGER JOLINDA KEMP ACCOUNTS NAEEMA ABRAHAMS KAUTHAR CERFF ELMON SEARLE OFFICE MANAGER MARCHÉ JASON RECEPTIONIST TESSA MBANGA

PRIVATE EDITION IS PUBLISHED BY

Private Edition is published by The Publishing Partnership (Pty) Ltd, 9th Floor, Tarquin House, 81 Loop Street, Cape Town 8001. Copyright: The Publishing Partnership (Pty) Ltd 2010. No portion of this publication may be reproduced without prior written consent from The Publishing Partnership or the authors. The publishers are not responsible for any unsolicited material. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of The Publishing Partnership or the editor. Editorial and advertising enquiries: PO Box 15054, Vlaeberg 8018; tel: 021 424 3517; fax: 021 424 3612; email: privateedition@ tppsa.co.za. Reproduction: Hirt & Carter.

Printing: ABC Press. ISSN: 2218-063X Private Edition is produced using certified paper from GOLDEAST PAPER CO LTD, an accredited company committed to environmental protection. The paper is made from legally harvested trees using environmentally friendly materials. The supplier is subjected to regular environmental audits.

PHOTOGRAPHY: JAC DE VILLIERS

IN EARLY MARCH, the Southern African Luxury Association (SALA), headed by Silvana Bottega, held its first Wealth Summit conference in South Africa, one of only five summits of its kind. Calculating the numbers of respondents alone, it already ranks the third largest in the world.

Over two days, a stellar line-up of 27 speakers presented their concepts on brand strategy and shared their experiences and insights on the luxury business.

Wealth managers in the financial sector spoke about reaching an affluent and savvy client base. What does this high-end market spend their money on? Where do they live? What drives them? How does one effectively reach and service this notoriously difficult ‘target market’? Speakers rolled out volumes of diverse and strategic information that, frankly, anyone in the luxury game would kill to know.

Private Edition was there and we’re compiling a comprehensive feature for publication in June. We were quietly thrilled to discover that the magazine we designed for you over four years ago, to address a discerning readership, has consistently hit many of the marks believed to be key in the sector. We publish travel destinations that offer rare and exclusive experiences (in this issue, Singita in Tanzania, page 72, wilderness camps in Botswana, page 68, elephant-back riding in Limpopo, page 76) and lifestyle motoring that captures not only the ‘brandgeist’ of the car, but the guts and glory of the experience (in this issue, Bentley in Croatia and McLaren’s racing genes on page 32 and 36 respectively).

There’s also service offered by craftsmen, artists and designers whose work is exceptional (see new Grand Chef Peter Tempelhoff, page 24), as well as not only keenly admired, but essential, information for the ‘little black books’ of this market. And as for Africa’s ability to become a major player in the international arena of luxury, South Africa shines with originality, diversity, authenticity, and creativity – all central to what the world defines as the DNA of luxury.

South Africans care. That’s evident in how many players in the luxury market design ways in which

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OPINION

Stand-Out Yields in a Flat Landscape Words MARC ROMBERG

The investment manager for Investec Wealth & Investment Marc Romberg shares how to find good yields without undue risk.

ANY SUGGESTION IN 2008 – at the height of the global financial crisis Property shares: There are many well-run property groups with – that rates today would still be at the very low levels that they are would quality assets paying good distributions ahead of money market rates. have been met with scepticism. Yet this is precisely what has happened.

Investors also have the prospect of capital appreciation in listed property Low rates may be good news for borrowers, but challenging for those shares (and the commensurate risk of capital losses). Remember, property looking for a good source of income on their investments. distributions are taxed as interest.

With prime at 9% and deposit rates even lower, investors are left with Property companies on the JSE are trading on an average forward the prospect of post-tax returns in the region of 3,5% per annum, below (pre-tax) yield of 7,5%. This compares with government bond yields CPI of 6,3%. The picture is even worse for investors investing cash offshore, (R157 bond) of around 6,7%. Investors should, of course, realise that higher with yields of often less than 1%. yielding stocks often carry greater risks.

Offshore corporate bonds: A number of liquid corporate bonds offer Economists and central banks aren’t forecasting a major growth or attractive yields in excess of cash rates. US corporate bonds currently offer interest rate lift-off anytime soon, thanks in part to the lingering problems yields of between 5% for investment grade paper to 8% on high yielding in the Eurozone and the fragile recovery. paper, in US dollars.

So where can investors find Equity investments: good after-tax yields without Although these are more assuming unnecessary risks? volatile, carry a larger degree We believe there are some of risk, and should be seen as compelling options available: Listed perpetual preference long-term investments, there shares: These hybrid instruments are currently opportunities pay dividends linked to prime to invest in good high (usually between 60% and 80% yielding shares both locally of prime). and abroad.

A couple of fundamentals The JSE All Share trades make these instruments fairly on a trailing dividend yield attractive. of 2,75%, and it is possible to Firstly, prior to the recent select a basket of stocks with Budget, a withholding tax on an even higher dividend yield. dividends was introduced to Globally, a number of replace the old 10% Secondary blue-chip companies (with Tax on Companies. The dividend good growth prospects) tax will be introduced on 1 April, trade on dividend yields in Yield is there if you know where to look... ahead of which many preference excess of 3%. share issuers committed to ‘gross Central banks’ ‘lower up’ the dividend distributed, effectively placing investors in the same for longer’ strategy appears at last to be bringing confidence back into position that they would have been in prior to this tax change. the market. Confidence has also been boosted by moves by the European The Budget did however further increase the rate to 15%, meaning an Central Bank to provide cheap funding for banks, as well as China’s shift to effective reduction in the net amount received by private investors, making looser policy. Corporate earnings are also holding up well in the US, which preference shares marginally less attractive than previously. Nevertheless, should keep ratings fairly attractive. it is our view that listed preference shares remain an attractive investment For investors seeking real returns over the longer term, there is room for investors paying high rates of tax. for investing in the so-called ‘risk assets’ (such as equities, commodities Secondly, changes to global banking regulation are likely to lead to and emerging markets). fewer issuances of preference shares by banks. Given the attractive yield And with the prospect of good capital and distribution growth, on these shares, one could see some price appreciation. this may turn out not to be such a risky approach after all. However, the At the time of writing, preference shares were on average yields of 6,6% golden rule remains not to take undue risk to compensate for the lower (assuming a 10% ‘gross up’). yield environment.

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What is it about a Cartier high-jewellery watch that drives demand? ‘The element of surprise,’ says Pierre Rainero, Cartier’s Image, Style and Heritage Director. ‘That, combined with Cartier’s recognisable design ethic, is our secret for success.’ Cartier’s Metiers d’Art collection – launched at the recent Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva – celebrates an exquisite new range of limited-edition, numbered watches, as well as the master watchmakers, whose exceptional skills can transform a drawing into a collector’s item. A marquetry of straw slivers gives life to an alert koala motif in a Rotonde de Cartier 35mm watch, gemstone mosaics provide the palette for a thoroughbred horse in a Santos-Dumont XL watch, grisaille enamel marks a majestic tiger on a Rotonde de Cartier 42mm while engraved mother-of-pearl evokes the plumage of a cockatoo on a large Tortue watch. Each of the 40 Santos-Dumont watches takes at least 120 hours to complete: 50 hours to render the horse and 70 hours for the background. Only 10 are set with baguette-cut diamonds. ‘I’m very proud to see how delicate is the setting, how articulated the mountings, how fluid the watch is on the wrist and how well some of the stones are carved,’ says Rainero. The number of novelties released each year is restricted to allow each of them ‘time to live their life quietly’. For further information, contact the Cartier Boutique on 011 666 2800.

TEXT: DEBBIE HATHWAY. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Behind the craftsmanship

PSST DESIGN

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL Reinventing retro

The term was first coined by trend forecaster Faith Popcorn in the '90s, but cocooning continues to be a very attractive option for people who like to keep their world in their home. So it's not surprising that Paris-based trend forecaster Li Edelkoort this year is seeing greater focus on design that allows people to do more in one space. On the couch. From the bed. Some may even do it in the kitchen. Technology makes it possible. The fluidity of 2011 has been replaced by an emphasis on tactility and texture in 2012, so the smartest kitchens not only blend discerning design with the best finishes, but assist in making the home more functional and livable. Assirelli Italian Design nails it with its Doris range of kitchens, offering a variety of cabinetry options made from durable polymer.

The adjacent kitchen makes the point with soothing retro shades of green and cream as options from a range of timber and colour finishes, available in matt or gloss. Throw in a touch of glass for a sophisticated edge. The cost of the Doris kitchen is dependent on your penchant for appliance integration and multi-functional storage. Each kitchen is custom-designed by company founder and kitchen design expert Andrea Assirelli. For further information, visit www.assirellidesign.com.

CLARITY OF THOUGHT

SECRET WEAPON

The next time you decide on a Waterford The Jem 2007 or a crisp Kleine Zalze Family Reserve 2010, be mindful that you could subtly enhance their taste by altering the shape of glass you use. But not any glass will do. Riedel Glassware, produced by generations of the Riedel family, began in the northern part of Bohemia in 1756. The Austrian glass-blowing family discovered that even subtle differences in the shape of a glass dramatically affect our perception of taste optimised on the nose and palate. Riedel glasses are thinblown and unadorned, maintaining the design to the essence of bowl, stem and base. If you must twirl a stem, sip and spit – and intelligently give your verdict – then give yourself a headstart with the glass. For further information, visit www.riedel.com.

Thrill seekers navigating yachts at sea will rave about their experiences. Losing power on navigation equipment isn't one of them. Montblanc’s designers at their Villeret atelier thought of that when they created the Régulateur Nautique Timepiece Set, launched at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie 2012 in Geneva. Limited to 16 pieces each, it’s a combination high-precision 93cm-high nautical clock and haute horlogerie chronograph. Inspired by Montblanc’s Grande Régulateur 2009, this dial has a more marine look and there's a patented emergency power reserve in both watch and clock. The latter sits in a heavy granite base, with curved aluminium and carbonfibre struts, and is designed with a cardanic suspension to hold the clock’s horizontal position, no matter the pitch of the yacht. Its three hour hands indicate port of origin, port of destination and local time.

The watch has a clear glass back to reveal handcrafted, hand-abraded chronograph levers and the Minerva V-shaped chronograph bridge. That extra touch? It's encased in a strut when not being worn. The watch is presented in a rose-gold case with brown leather strap or white gold with marine-blue leather strap. For more details, visit www.montblanc.com.

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Well timed

TEXT: DEBBIE HATHWAY AND LES AUPIAIS. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

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PSST WATCHES

FRENCH CONNECTION Contemporary liaison

One of the most important evolutions in watchmaking, the invention of the chronograph, began with a man and a horse. The man was Nicolas Rieussec, a 19th-century French watchmaker who invented a way to measure lap times with a chronometer. The rotating disc system enabled times to be measured to an accuracy of a quarter of a second. His invention was later christened the 'chronograph' (meaning ‘that which writes time’) and was patented in 1822. This year’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva, Switzerland, saw Montblanc launch its fifth-generation Rieussec with its R210 automatic calibre housed in the Nicolas Rieussec Chronograph Open Home Time. The concept maximises the principle of Rieussec’s invention, using five rotating disks rather than moving hands. The chronograph second, chronograph minute, night indication and calendar day create a beautiful liaison with Montblanc’s Home Time skeleton disk and a pleasing tension between the characteristics of a technical and classical watch. This beauty is offered in limited-edition platinum, unlimited steel and red gold editions with four options on the dial: anthracite, black, silver-coloured and solid platinum. For further information, visit www.montblanc.com.

Geared for adventure For a bit of underwater glam underpinned by practical sophistication, Omega's Seamaster Planet Ocean wristwatches should get a girl's pulse racing. Designed with divers in mind, the applied indexes on the dial and the polished, facetted rhodium-plated hands are coated with white Super-LumiNova to exude a blue light. The minute hand and the dot on the diving bezel emit a green light to help track time. Stability and reliability are secured with the inclusion of Omega's exclusive Co-Axial calibres and silicon balance spring. For further information, visit www.omegawatches.com.

SUPERNOVA

Franck Muller’s Giga Tourbillon The complexities of a complication; a small universe of impossibly small components (240 in this timepiece) – such is the technical precision of this Franck Muller Giga Tourbillon that the research and development teams behind it are spoken of in hushed tones.

The Giga Tourbillion is the largest to be incorporated into a wristwatch and occupies half the piece – forming a striking central focal point in the composition of the face. It's set with 693 diamonds; in itself an art that requires exceptional skill. This rare beauty made its debut earlier this year and is a collector’s priority.

For further information, call 011 372 6000.

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LADY LOVE

Coveted arm candy When your high-jewellery designers and craftsmen shine almost as brilliantly as the cut diamonds they work with, both the excitement and anticipation surrounding a new timepiece launch can't be overstated. Graff Diamonds' LadyGraff sparkles with 170 gems and weighs a total of 43 carats. But it's the Swiss knowhow behind the gem-setting technique and design flair that makes it work. Graff's master craftsmen have taken 109 carefully selected brilliant-cut diamonds and layered them into the bracelet in a deceptively complex, linear formation. That's the key to allowing the pure quality of the stones to shine through and meet the requirements for delicacy and whimsy. The quartz movement simply reveals the hours and minutes across a 16mm diameter. Famous for the quality and rarity of their diamonds, the House of Graff employs master craftsmen skilled at creating entire masterpieces by hand; from design to polishing to setting. The result? An exquisite treasure. The LadyGraff is available in a limited-edition collection of 20 pieces.

For further information, contact Graff Diamonds at Delaire on 021 885 8160.

TEXT: LES AUPIAIS AND DEBBIE HATHWAY. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

DIVE STYLE

PSST NEWS

ENGINEERED FOR MEN A true test of endurance

When you’re racing inland or offshore, a yacht’s position and speed at the starter’s gun can make or break its race. Skippers at the mercy of weather and water conditions have to steer strategically to defend their positions. It’s all about timing. IWC Schaffhausen launched a special edition of its Portuguese Yacht Club Chronograph at the start of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012 in Alicante, Spain.

IWC is the official timekeeper of the eight-month round-the-world race that sees six yachts attempt to cross four oceans from Spain to Ireland – with nine legs that last up to 22 days. Only the most resilient sailors make the cut. Why do they do it? It’s about the challenge. Each of the 11 members of the crew that records the greatest distance in 24 hours will win a permanent reminder of their achievement – an IWC Portuguese Yacht Club Chronograph Edition ‘Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12’. The IWCmanufactured 89361-calibre self-winding, mechanical chronograph movement is powered for optimum functionality in all weather conditions. The chronograph contains a stopwatch function, a flyback function, hour and minute counters combined in one counter at 12 o’clock, small hacking seconds and a date display. It’s the only model in the Portuguese range with crown protection plus luminescent hands and indices. It's available in stainless steel with a black or silver-plated dial; and in red gold with a slate-coloured dial and black totalisers. For further details, contact IWC on 011 317 2600 or visit www.iwc.com.

ARTS AND CULTURE BUFFS CAN GET A LITTLE MORE OUT OF THE CAPE WINELANDS AT LA MOTTE WINE ESTATE. OWNER HANNELI RUPERT-KOEGELENBERG, A CELEBRATED MEZZO-SOPRANO, ARRANGES CLASSICAL MUSIC EVENING CONCERTS IN THE HISTORIC CELLAR WITH ITS 1942 STEINWAY. AND AFTERWARDS? DINNER AT PIERNEEF À LA MOTTE.

RUSSIAN PROTOCOL

TEXT: DEBBIE HATHWAY AND LES AUPIAIS. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Your ticket to ice-cool street cred There are allegedly nine simple toasts you can make in Russia before you knock back a shot of vodka – from your health to the hostess, women in general, love, parents and friendship. That’s why we calculate that a bottle of Russian Standard, a premium vodka recently launched in SA, would last about 10 minutes. The vodka distributors say that it’s the only premium vodka available in South Africa that flies true Russian colours, because it's made with Russian ingredients, distilled and bottled in Russia, and is their own premium brand. Drink it neat over crushed ice or in a cocktail. Oh, and don’t say ‘Na zda-ró-vye’. You’d be thanking your host for a fine bowl of borscht. For more details, visit www.russianstandardvodka.com/sa.

THE LURE OF THE RESERVE Grand central

Another essential entry for your little black book is The Reserve. This fine-dining venue is located in the old SA Reserve Bank building – an historic inner-city Cape Town landmark. All 150-year-old buildings have a certain character; yet, as if this one didn't have enough, it boasts a 12 metre-high ceiling to provide added drama. Chef Alex brings his experience in catering for the international jet set into the kitchen to create Mediterranean dishes as fascinating as they're mouthwatering.

The menu incorporates the Cape's natural bounty, from freshly caught seafood to organic produce. On the right night, you'll get whole fish baked in sea salt and Chateaubriand with morel mushroom sauce and truffle mash. The pièce de résistance is the strawberry and basil dessert. For further information, contact 021 424 0102.

ISSUE 15 P R I V A T E E D I T I O N 1 9

PSST FASHION

MOOD SETTERS Iconic femininity

Alma bag in indigo Epi leather, from R14 800 at Louis Vuitton

WHEN IN ROME...

Limited-edition Puma x Franklin Marshall Roma Lux Even something as deceptively low-key as a sneaker can acquire celebrity status when you couple classy design with exclusivity. Only 800 pairs of the Puma x Franklin Marshall Roma Lux will grace the shelves of Europe's top stores – and South Africa's Loom, recently named 'One of the World's Top 20 Men's Stores' by New York magazine Nylon. The feet that wear them (UK size 8, 9 or 10) will talk to the collaboration between Puma and the college-inspired Italian clothing brand Franklin & Marshall. They're something of a cult classic, having been created in 1960 and later relaunched to the Italian football team, and retail at R1 200 a pair. For more details, visit www.loomshop.co.za or call 011 447 4330.

GROWTH INDUSTRY

Hout Couture sunglasses Nothing ages quite as beautifully as wood, its intertwining bumps and knots adding timeless appeal to each piece. Perhaps that’s what quickened the pace of the young entrepreneurs behind the Hout Couture brand when they decided to manufacture wooden sunglass frames.

What started out as a university project – the assignment was to launch a business with R50 – is now a hot commodity. ‘Hout’ (from ‘wood’ in Afrikaans) Couture is the trademark behind the wooden sunglasses, now in assorted styles, that have been flying off shelves in Cape Town, Johannesburg and George. No two pairs are the same as each lightweight frame bears unique patterns and grains. What's more, for each pair bought, a seed is planted through the EcoSchools Programme. For stockists, go to www.houtcouture.com.

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LOVE, AQUATICALLY

Love Brand & Co. swimming trunks Most women will admit that they feel a little nostalgic affection for the shaggy surfer look – baggy boardies that generally dangle below the knees and that sandy saltwater mussedhair look. But that was then. Here’s now. Oliver Tomalin, the brainchild behind Love Brand & Co., has found a balance of comfort and style with a more appealing pair of classic swimming trunks cut just above the knee and loosely tailored for a fit that's just tight enough. The finest quality, quick-dry fabric, which combines bold graphics with vintage prints of exotic fruits and nautical stripes, leaves the scruffy surfer look in the shallows.

Each design is available across seven sizes (XXS-XXL). Their debut collection – ‘Trunks for Trunks’ – was inspired by the plight of the endangered Asian elephant and five percent of the profits are donated to the Elephant Family charity. For more information, go to www.lovebrand.com.

TEXT: DEBBIE HATHWAY AND HANNAH MOORE. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Louis Vuitton artistic director Marc Jacobs designs for every woman – the girl, the mistress, the wife. There's a special quality in each one, subtly revealed by a Vuitton piece, shoe or bag.

The House's classic Epi leather goes bright and bold for a contemporary take on the shoulder bag and soon-to-follow Petit Noé. Both are available in limited-edition colour trios to match your mood.

Keep it simple yet striking with fuchsia, citron or cyan or tone it down with cacao or cool grey.

For more details, visit www.louisvuitton.com.

UNIFORM APPEAL It's all in the detail

The appeal of a man in uniform might border on the clichĂŠd, but there's no arguing the point. It doesn't need to have a law enforcement orientation either; traditional workwear will do nicely, thank you. That's the inspiration for Paul Smith's Spring Summer 2012 mainline collection, which uses a blue, ecru and damson colour palette for minimal yet classic appeal, underpinned by the unmistakeable style of utility workwear. Masculine strength is conveyed in the sharp silhouettes; interior detailing now moves to the exterior. Fabrics are relaxed yet durable, knitwear is oversized and outerwear is emphasised with quilted pea coats, parkas and reversible jackets. To nail down the workwear look, opt for a jacket with large patch pockets to get that vintage feel, and choose collar detail that's either entirely absent or stitched down. Go neat and efficient with a box-shaped jacket or a short, slim workers' smock with extreme drop shoulders. For further information, contact Paul Smith on 021 418 0007 or 011 447 1074.

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AT YOUR SERVICE

The Peter Principle You don’t get to be a Grand Chef unless you’re the sharpest knife in a very exclusive set.

Part science, part genius, Tempelhoff’s cuisine comes down to an intuitive balance very few chefs possess. SA’s newest Grand Chef seems to negotiate the tightrope between visual artistry and seducing your taste buds

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IS PETER TEMPELHOFF, the handsome ‘head boy’ of Liz McGrath’s three hotels in The Collection, a bit of a ‘Gordon’ in the kitchen? He grins briefly. Well, no, not exactly, he says, but he does admit that he has to be tough backstage.

The kitchen regime is part military discipline and systems, coupled with one hell of a lot of creativity. When you set such a fierce standard, things have to be done ‘just so’; foam must be teased from air and mystical stock; hibiscus jus reduced to a delicate nuance, a mere suggestion of flavour. And the menu peppered with suggestive whips and melees: vierge, gelée, vinaigrette, consommé and sorbet. The senses should be engaged, even seduced, and so the slightest slip and the dish would not make the grade.

But a staggeringly imaginative menu is only a fraction of the story. To be awarded the status of Grand Chef, (he was culinarily ‘knighted’ late last year), you must be voted into the most exclusive club in the world by 160 fellow genii of the arts – renowned and celebrated international chefs from five continents – who preside over Michelin-star restaurants judged on their setting, service, wine and menus that reflect individual cultures. (If your country doesn’t use the rating, as is the case in SA, then you must be judged to be ‘as good as a Michelin one- or two-star’).

So, what has Mrs M’s star chef done that’s earned him the right to stand alongside Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons’ Raymond Blanc and The Fat Duck Restaurant’s Heston Blumenthal?

(And in SA, Grand Chef Margot Janse of Le Quartier Français.) Peter says it’s about texture, singular flavours and what he calls a ‘modern take of Southern African cuisine’.

The Greenhouse (The Cellars-Hohenort

Hotel’s award-winning gastronomic restaurant in Cape Town) is a growing legend. A friend who has dined there twice this season and has the good fortune to be in and out of Michelinstar restaurants in Europe often, says she has never tasted such impeccably delicious food.

She writes of the seafood tasting menu: ‘Each dish was more delicate, beautifully constructed and exciting than the one before.

The crayfish custard – a warm sweet potato mousse served with crayfish and leeks – is a mouthful of perfectly balanced flavours and textures. Not being scallop eaters, we asked the waiter if they would swop them for the miso and sesame-cured salmon trout.

‘The combinations on the plate are exceptional – a soft vegetable spring roll, ginger aïoli, jalapeño and crispy prawn topped with the wonderful ponzu snow that has become a signature of The Greenhouse. The steamed kabeljou on a bed of leek and bacon risotto, lemon marmalade and lobster bisque was perfection. But it was the unexpectedly exquisite taste of the fennel cream with a quenelle of nectarine sorbet and tukmaria (basil seeds) that stayed with me long after the meal.’ She concludes that it’s art on a plate.

Peter is known to unite quail with nasturtiums and green almonds; or roast duck, bergamot and mulberries. As for desserts, think way out of the box and try smoked chocolate, candy cane beetroots and cherries. Is it surprising, then, that The Greenhouse is fully booked for two weeks at a time and no-one in their right mind gives up their seat?

For (lucky) bookings, contact The CellarsHohenort on 021 794 2137.

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Words LES AUPIAIS

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CONSUMING PASSIONS

Pocket Power What is the secret of racing a winner? Jockey Muzi Yeni talks technique.

PHOTOGRAPHY: TREVOR CRIGHTONA

Words TREVOR CRIGHTON

In the world of competitive racing, the key to being a runaway success includes being totally in tune with your horse

MUZI YENI STANDS JUST over five feet tall.

He may take flak for his high-pitched voice, but beware of teasing someone who wrestles 500kg horses around a racetrack for a living. ‘You need balls of steel in this game and I’ve been very successful, so it’s pretty easy to laugh off the jokes!’ he says.

One of South Africa’s premier jockeys, Muzi rides over 1 200 mounts per season and boasts a win rate nudging the elusive 10 percent mark.

He rode his first Grade 1 winner, the 55-1 outsider Happy Landings, at the 2011 President’s Cup and has place finishes at the Vodacom Durban July to his credit, but his bread and butter is racing almost every second day during the busy season. ‘When I’m not racing, I get up at 4am to work for three trainers at Summerveld: Colin Scott, Mike de Kock and Kom Naidoo.’

Unsurprisingly, his personal life is also tightly linked to racing. He’s engaged to Kim Rambau, with whom he has a one-year-old daughter, Linda. Muzi met Kim five years ago when she was a secretary at the National Horse Racing Authority. She travels with Muzi to bigger races like the J&B Met and Vodacom Durban July whenever she can.

On the track, he jokes that the easiest way to win is to ride the best horse. ‘But track positioning and being able to judge the pace of the race are almost as important as having a quality mount,’ says Muzi. ‘Having the best horse doesn’t guarantee you a win if you don’t know how to work it properly.’

The way the horse moves in the gallop tells

him everything he needs to know about it.

‘When you ride an ordinary horse in a gallop, you can feel every step. A great horse has a smooth gallop. It feels as though its hooves barely touch the ground and covers a huge distance with every stride. It almost feels like you’re floating.’

Technique may not be in his genes, but the first racing seed was sown close to home.

‘My father read about becoming a jockey in the newspaper and encouraged me to join the South African Jockey Academy when I was 15,’ he says. Now aged 25, and four years out of the academy, he’s become one of the country’s most promising young riders.

Having won in Korea in September 2010, Muzi is keen to see if his success in domestic racing will translate into an international career. ‘I’d love to work overseas and I’m sure that, if I find a good horse that I get along with, Mike de Kock will give me a chance in Dubai.

However, my primary goal is to win the SA Jockey Championship title.’

Former champion jockey Mark Khan, now head of the Horse Racing Division at Prosport International, believes that Muzi does have the potential to be an international success.

‘Muzi is a fiery character who loves what he does.

He’s passionate about the sport, loves horses and thrives on the competition – and he has the skills to bring home winners consistently,’ says Khan.

A fire-and-guts jockey and a track champ.

It’s damn near perfect form if you’re looking for a safe bet.

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AT YOUR SERVICE

Medication in Motion As far-fetched as it may seem, the answer to extended life and exceptional health may be in the way you move.

Words DEBBIE HATHWAY Photography WARREN RASMUSSEN

TO DR MICHAEL LAN, a Chinese medicine doctor and t’ai chi master, health is an authentic combination of ancient forms of Chinese medicine and healing offered through treatments like acupuncture and massage, a focus on nutrition and diet, life coaching as well as the physical martial art practices of t’ai chi and qi gong (or chi kung).

He believes that while t’ai chi is an ‘exceptional tool and movement to bring balance and leadership to one’s life, for physical ailments, transformational acupuncture treatments can shift things quickly’. A good acupuncturist uses the knowledge of meridians, energy and chi in the practise of t’ai chi, he says.

T’ai chi also teaches the art of patience and grace, and provides a sense of joy and accomplishment, he says. In addition, ‘the fresh oxygen we’re able to bring into the body brings new light and strength to the unused parts of body and mind where depression hides.’ For the past 18 years, Dr Lan has worked from his Cape Town studio, Jing-An (which means ‘Source of Serenity’) to help people transform their world. The conscientious teaching of t’ai chi is the one string in his bow, described by environmental news resource Mother Nature Network as ‘the graceful slow dance you do alone, revving up your body’s illness-fighting defences by as much as 47 percent and even tripling the protection you get from a flu shot’.

He, himself, has an unwavering conviction in the ability of his treatments to heal as well as achieve and maintain balance in life. All he asks in return is your commitment to follow his plan. No excuses. His approach is to block every negative with a positive thought pattern or action for a healthy outcome.

While author Eckhart Tolle has noted that t’ai chi and qi gong will be an important part of the global awakening, research supports

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its ability to heal insomnia (Reuters), mental health (Ottawa Citizen), help prevent dementia, heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers (The American College of Sports Medicine, quoted in The Washington Post) and beat stress (British Journal of Sports Medicine). In addition, neuroscientists are linking mind-body practices such as t’ai chi to the brain’s ability to diminish chronic pain (The Australian, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal). The secret? Slow movements and controlled breathing.

Enlightened executives book one-on-one sessions with Dr Lan to learn how to better deal with stress, live healthier lives and develop a renewed sense of purpose in their work while companies tap into his knowledge and training through teambuilding workshops. The result is increased productivity and wellness.

While t’ai chi’s effectiveness in rewiring the brain becomes evident fairly quickly with dedicated practice, it can also come to the rescue when your emotions get the better of you. ‘You just have to deal with your situation through t’ai chi’, says Dr Lan. ‘If we desire health, in addition to nutrition, medicine, hygiene and exercise, we must emphasise peace of mind.

Beset by worries, tension, restrictions and demands on all sides, the cerebrum is forced to work the entire day. Even in sleep we dream, so there’s never a moment’s rest.’

He says that if we can temporarily forget the source of our stress, thus enabling the body and mind to relax and allow the nerves an opportunity to rest, this not only improves overall health, but can contribute to longevity and reverse the ageing process.

For more information, go to www.jing-an.co.za.

Dr Lan proposes that t’ai chi is a refreshing alternative to anti-depressants and may be the first port of call if you’re keen on healing yourself naturally

AT YOUR SERVICE

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EVEN STEVENS: INVESTMENT

Ode to Lafite What’s arguably the best wine in the world? Steven Lack makes a case for his all-time favourite.

Words STEVEN LACK Photography FIONA ROYDS/INFIDELS

When it comes to serving a vintage wine, you’re allowed to be selfish about who you choose to share it with

THE WORLD’S GREATEST WINEMAKERS don’t consider themselves as genii; just artists whose paint is nature’s terroir. The winemaker at Lafite Rothschild, if asked when he’ll produce an even better wine, invariably replies, ‘next time’. Whatever you do, you know there’s always room for improvement.

As we know, the proof of the pudding is in the drinking and, when drinking Lafite, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the best wine in the world. Usually the notion of ‘best’ is a matter of personal taste, but with Lafite Rothschild, it’s a fact.

Offer me any bottle at all, ask ‘what’s better than this?’ and my answer will always be: another bottle of Lafite Rothschild or Palmer.

It could also be Mouton Rothschild. Ask me the following day, and my answer might be Cos d’Estournel. The word’s out though. There are a staggering 30 million new Chinese elite and they have done their homework on the world’s best investment wines. They are now queuing up to buy the available 250 000 bottles of Lafite – at any price.

Lafite Rothschild fetches prices five times as

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high as other first growths and, in my opinion, it’s not enough for this perfect elixir of the gods.

I’d pay more for any vintage I could lay my hands on.

The only acceptable excuse for not drinking a wine as sumptuous, as voluptuous, as Lafite, is not being able to afford it. Absolutely fine. But can you afford not to invest in Lafite?

If you do get your hands on a solitary bottle, you’d be well within your rights to give in to temptation, and be utterly indulgent and selfish.

The best bottle of wine I have ever drunk – and by myself – was Lafite ’86. Perfect in every way!

Then again, you may have drinker’s remorse when you tally up your folly, so to speak. You might be well advised to invest in it instead.

Lafite’s ’82, declared best performing asset of the noughties, earned investors a return of 870 percent over 10 years. The 2010 released en primeur at €600 traded the following day at over €1 000. Do the maths. Lafite 2008 prices ‘crashed’ recently by 40 percent. If that happened on the stock markets, you’d be upset, but those owning Lafite Rothschild 2008 popped Philipponnat bubbly to celebrate the

fact that they bought it at €130. It ‘crashed’ to €600, still giving investors a return of 600 percent in two years. Can you afford not to invest in Lafite or Bordeaux blue chips?

Of course, it’s only profit once sold and cash banked. A challenge? Well, when you’re ready to sell your wisely invested cases of Lafite, contact me. There’s that long and eager queue and a deal’s only a call away.

Lafite’s prices are high, because the Chinese have drunk it all. The simple rules of supply and demand apply.

You’re allowed to be selfish with your special wines, but they’re best shared with friends who appreciate them. Bottles of easy drinking plonk have their place, but it might break your heart to serve an iconic beauty of a vintage only to be told that they can get a bottle as good ‘for 35 bucks at (his) local’.

The best bottle of wine in the world.

Seriously? You decide, based on four elements: sight, smell, taste and – more importantly – your emotions. The best bottle of wine is always the one you feel for most on that day, for that occasion. Santé.

EVEN STEVENS: INVESTMENT

The Chinese Cognoscenti Only the iconic brands will do for top-drawer Chinese consumers; the Swiss have their eyes on the East.

Words STEVE KOCHER Photography FIONA ROYDS/INFIDELS

WHILE WE’VE COME A LONG WAY in South Africa in the appreciation of timepieces as a reflection of style and luxury, we still trail behind the Asian watch connoisseur and even behind the youngest of all markets, China.

It would be difficult to compare the market for luxury goods in China with the one in South Africa. Just the sheer difference in size is mindboggling. According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, watch exports to Hong Kong and China have grown continuously in double digits and now represent nearly a third of all Swiss watch exports. Emerging from a population of 1,3 billion people is a Chinese consumer who is extremely brand conscious and will invest a disproportionate part of their income on a timepiece.

The evolution of Swiss watch sales in China has been a short, but furiously fast one. China was closed to foreign imports from the mid 1940s. It was only in the late ’80s and early ’90s that some Swiss brands started to market their brands. I was stationed in Hong Kong for the Swatch Group (SMH at the time) and witnessed the first steps of Swiss watch brands into this

market. I travelled the country from Harbin (bordering Siberia) to Guangzhou in the south by car, plane and train. Besides the shock to my taste buds (sea worms in sticky soup, fried silk worms and scorpions on green leaves etc), I was part of a revolution in consumerism and witnessed the early attempts to understand and penetrate this gargantuan market.

Some brands, like Roamer and Titoni, had an advantage having supplied the market via the communist regime with automatic mechanical watches. Some luxury brands, like Rado, were true pioneers and took advantage of very low communication costs and actively promoted their brand long before selling their first watches. Omega, trying to catch up with its sister company Rado, started paying for front windows of state-owned watch retailers and began to take control of display and merchandising, often doubling a store’s income just by paying monthly rental for space. These early investments paid off tenfold and today these brands are leaders in the market, paving the way for many more players to follow.

Now all top brands are vying for a slice

of the booming market. Brand ‘shrines’ are mushrooming in all major centres that boast the most prestigious stand-alone stores. Rolex recently opened the Rolex Experience store in Shanghai. Positioned on the Bund (comparable to the Champs Élysées in Paris or 5th Avenue in New York), this combination of museum, showroom and selling area occupies 800 square metres! Franck Muller, Cartier, GirardPerregaux, Breitling, Bulgari and Chopard, to mention just a few, have built prestigious flagship stores in top shopping streets and within many luxury shopping malls.

It’s estimated that one percent of the Chinese population is able to purchase luxury goods, which translates to a core target market of over 10 million consumers, of which one million have a net worth of $1,5 million US. If one couples this with the Chinese millionaire’s preference for collecting timepieces over and above art, cars and red wine, it’s not surprising that in order to weather the economic downturn from the Western world, China has become the unavoidable focus for the Swiss haute horlogerie.

PHOTOGRAPHY OF PRODUCT: SUPPLIED

Franck Muller’s Shanghai showroom is an ode to Swiss haute horlogerie

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DRIVE BY DESIGN

Deeply, Madly, Bentley Bond loved them, but there are as many ways to fall for a Bentley Continental GTC convertible as there are variations to the way you can primp this splendid ride.

Words KATHY MALHERBE

Bentleys are ‘born’ at Crewe in a design studio attended by engineers, but the only way to experience the new Continental GTC is to put it through its paces

IT’S ALWAYS BEEN COOL TO DRIVE A CONVERTIBLE. Make it a Bentley and you’re up there with the likes of Bentley lover James Bond. Fleming tells us in Casino Royale that Bond spent $3 000 (amounting to half his capital in those days) converting his sports saloon body, Heath Robinson-style, into a convertible. Fleming says, ‘Bond loved her more than all the women present in his life, rolled – if that were feasible – together.’

Bond’s predilection for Bentleys in print didn’t translate into movies, however. ‘We weren’t prepared to trash a Bentley. Not even for 007,’ says Nigel Stoddard, curator of the Bentley Museum in Crewe, central England.

Founder WO Bentley said in the early 1900s that he wanted ‘to build a good car, a fast car, the best in its class’, which is what the craftsmen at Crewe have been doing since 1946. The latest Bentley, the Continental GTC, is sensuously sculptured, and is all unrivalled luxury cocooning a six-litre W12 engine. The allwheel drive of a Bentley means sharper, safer steering. The wider track and retuned steering accommodate the more spirited driver and offer the primitive delight of a powerful, responsive sports car. It’s a blend of the definitive Bentley DNA with modern design and technology.

All this has attracted a new fan base. Bentley board member for sales and marketing Alasdair Stewart says 7 003 Bentleys were delivered

internationally in 2011 – up 37 percent from 2010, with a very strong growth in China. At around R2 million a pop (way more if you dig deep into the accessories bucket), that’s a lot of forex. And a good proportion of these have been the new convertible.

Stewart runs off some of the attributes of the Continental GTC, including the superformed aluminium, the three-layer fabric hood and the renowned Naim infotainment centre.

Not forgetting the effortless acceleration from 0-100km/h in 4,8 seconds.

Bentleys are ‘born’ at Crewe in England in a design studio that’s a hub of artistry. A large plaque on the wall quotes French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: ‘A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.’

There’s a kind of hush all over the 60 hectares of factory floor where the whitecoated staff appear to be enjoying a favourite craft rather than working on a multi-million pound production line.

The factory is spotless, with air replaced every few hours. Groups of engineers calculate, measure and check a chassis; artists paint silently and polish a bonnet with zero-rated, ultra-fine, wet-and-dry paper as smooth as a sheet of monogrammed bond. The hides are chosen from animals who live in thorn-free

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A bespoke Bentley may come off the floor brand new, but the wood veneer is at least 80 years old.

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areas, and when they pass to the tailors, they’re stitched by hand.

Next to them, a studio of carpenters – generations of whom have worked at the factory – apply layer upon layer of wafer-thin walnut veneer; a sophisticated and complicated decoupage where each piece is mirrored back, front, left and right so that, from any angle in the car, it’s symmetrical. In the event that the customer wants a bespoke picnic table, iPod holder or eyewear case, the veneer must come from the same bundle.

A bespoke Bentley may come off the floor brand new, but the wood veneer is at least 80 years old. Just like the rabassiers, the Provençal truffle detectives who hunt these fungi secretly at night, searching and identifying the perfect wood is a covert operation. Considering a tree with the perfect burl can fetch $50 000, it’s unsurprising that the location is top-secret.

How personal is the process? Very. ‘The answer to every request from a prospective Bentley owner is “Yes”,’ says Stoddard. Even though the brief may stretch a little beyond Bentley’s classic framework. A Superman hood ornament? No problem. Queen Elizabeth wanted her Bentley to have part of the roof connected to the doors so that ‘We’ could stand before exiting the car. HRH got her way. One famous story is of a prospective owner who didn’t like any of the 117 colours available.

Eventually he arrived toting his powder-blue food blender as a colour match. Other requests include matching the colour of a bridesmaid’s dress or nail polish. Eccentricity comes standard, it seems.

One can ogle all day, but the only way to put a Bentley through its paces is beyond the confines of Crewe’s sterile factory. Croatia’s serpentine coastal roads, where we did just that, was not the place to put the car’s top speed of 314km/h to the test. We chose cruise mode, which begins as a discreet whisper then, as you put your foot down, the engine vamps into race-mode supercar – a sound as spine-tingling to a petrolhead as a fine rendition of an aria to an opera lover.

One Bentley Continental is enough to bring on a bout of serious envy, but a cavalcade of them sashaying through Croatian villages turned out to be a head-swiveller. As was the coastline of Croatia. The towns are pristine, the roads magnificent and flanked by a sheer drop to the Adriatic. There is something about

driving with the top down that engages your senses, from the salty tang of the coastal air to the aroma of fresh-baked bread as you pass a village bakery. And the rather pungent whiff of a dairy farm.

But the one scent you can’t get from driving a Bentley is a product that buoys the Croatain economy; the truffle. Buzet, known as the City of Truffles, is officially the smallest town in the world, and the source of a gourmand’s dream, the white truffle. You’re first shown what looks like a lump of clay moulded in a children’s pottery class. It’s a model of the original found in 1999, a Kohinoor of a truffle that was then valued at 20 000 Deutsche Mark. Today, a first-class white truffle costs about R30 000 a kilo, which probably accounts for the 2 000 licensed optimistic truffle hunters in the area.

The truffle only gives off its ‘take me now’ aroma for a couple of hours so finding them is an eureka moment. Traditionally, pigs were used to ‘hunt’ them, but the creature’s penchant for the delicacy meant they often scoffed their spoils and had to be retrenched – if not pâtéd – for their greed. Today, dogs whiffle out truffles in return for cookies, we’re told. This is no time to dispute pig-dog intelligence, but the proof, it seems, is in the eating.

From Buzet to Pula – with its legacy of invaders from the Venetians – to the Romans, French Italians and Yugoslavs. A gregarious guide took us through Pula’s grand amphitheatre, which saw its fair share of slaves versus hungry lions, raging bulls and bears.

But, back to the theme of smart dogs, it was the Rottweilers and their wily aggression that were the most-feared opponents. Every legionnaire, we’re told, had Rottweilers trained for battle. The ‘paw-soldiers’ had spears attached to their chests and they’d run into the enemy line to wound from the waist down.

Apparently, some of the greatest victories of the Roman Empire were ascribed to these fourlegged missiles.

Not quite a weapon on four wheels, but sure to make you buckle at the knees, the Bentley Continental GTC is an irresistible investment for anyone with Bond’s passion for the brand.

And remember: they’re obliging at Crewe. If you’d like your leather infused with the subtle fragrance of eau de truffle, they might oblige.

Just be a little careful driving anywhere near Buzet. You’ll have a hound in the hot seat and all over you in a nanosecond.

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

DRIVE BY DESIGN

What’s in a name? In the case of Bentley, the brand’s history follows the lines of the plot of a thriller – laced with daring visions, narrow escapes, sensational comebacks and stellar achievements

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DRIVE BY DESIGN

Low Flying

Formula 1 giant McLaren has developed their first road car − but not enough of them, it seems, to keep up with demand. Testing it said it all.

Words PAUL MCNALLY

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DRIVE BY DESIGN

Hailing from the stock that bred F1 stardom, and what can arguably be described as the world’s most coveted road car, McLaren’s MP4-12C is a veritable ode to automobile technology

THE EXPANSIVE WINDOWS at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, UK, have a problem with ugly black flies squatting against the glass. They’re muddying the pristine atmosphere of the centre’s showroom. It won’t do and the brains behind the technology are diverted to discussions about entomology and ecology.

Their concern is justified.

The centre is a shrine and features Formula 1 cars from history. In the corner is the exact car that precocious 15-year-old Bruce McLaren used in 1954 to win his first race. Another, nicknamed ‘the guillotine’, took 80 lives before being banned.

There is Alain Prost’s F1 car, and Ayrton Senna’s.

This is where McLaren cars are designed, tested, celebrated and assembled. Each step from the forging of the carbon fibre to the executive chairman Ron Dennis’s office is separated by a maximum walk of one minute 20 seconds down shiny, tiled corridors. The world of McLaren is designed to be integrated and perfect. So solving the black pulp problem on the 10-metre high windows is a matter of principle.

The flies are breeding in the lake that’s wrapped around the complex. Its water is pumped and circulated under the building, cooling the production plant used exclusively for the new McLaren MP4-12C, leaving air conditioning unnecessary.

McLaren has won a quarter of the Formula 1 races they’ve entered. That’s an incredible statistic. The MP4-12C is their first road car and they’re producing 10 a day; underground, in the cleanest factory imaginable. Each of the 32 stages it takes to build an M4-12C is guided by human hand, no robots, and each eerily resembles a pit stop of the future. There are no sounds except mild conversation and the reserved testing of car horns. Breathtaking, but clinical. The question is how does the MP4-12C handle when being raced around a proper track?

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DRIVE BY DESIGN

The car is equipped with a port for your racing data to be popped out of a USB stick. There is a gleeful orgy to how many statistics can be squeezed out of driving a few hundred metres.

Inner sanctum: writer Paul McNally braved icy conditions and The Stig’s enviable second-fastest lap to experience just under two minutes of euphoria around the McLaren racetrack. Who wouldn’t – given the opportunity to sample the F1 giant’s incomparable MP4-12C?

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tyres. In the event of a collision, I’m told, the MP4-12C can take 400kN of load in the front.

I slide into the driver’s seat. Each component was designed from scratch with this specific car in mind. There’s 592 horsepower. A computer has replaced the anti-roll bar so each wheel is balanced independently with hydraulics. The result is the most serene ride you’ll find in any supercar. The warm, velvety computer system accommodates your reactions and allows you to feel entirely safe, while you reach a top speed in excess of 322 km/h.

Another journalist tells me the last time he drove a supercar through Johannesburg with the top down, someone threw a full carton of orange juice at him and soaked him and the upholstery stickily through. They were so gripped with jealousy that they wasted a litre of enjoyable drink − out of spite. After a morning in the McLaren, I’d be fully prepared for abuse, orange juice and dead cats all to be tossed in my general direction. In track mode, the sound of the engine is so encouragingly loud inside the car that you don’t need to bother with what’s outside anyway.

The car is equipped with multi-directional cameras and a port for your racing data to be popped out on a USB stick. There is a gleeful orgy to how many statistics can be squeezed out of driving a few hundred metres. My track is

30 seconds slower than The Stig’s; somehow I’m disappointed, like my manliness should have pulled me through.

SOUTHERN SWAGGER The MP4-12C (price on request) has a yearlong waiting list. In SA, 27 of the 30 have been sold making something of a curiousity of the ‘recession’. McLaren can’t trade as strongly on their pedigree of decades in F1 as they would in Europe (F1 pulled out of South Africa in 1985, returning for a handful of races in the early nineties at Kyalami in Midrand), but it seems the boys have long enough memories.

As for the fly problem, fine minds have come up with an ecofriendly solution. At the McLaren Technology Centre, fish are introduced into the lake to catch the flies. This works, but the fish have no natural predators and so the lake becomes congested. To solve this, herons are bred to eat the fish and nest in the brushes.

All becomes calm. A man-made ecosystem has made the glacial building clear.

This is the sprawling, problem-solving mentality of McLaren that extends to their MP4-12C. They’ve created an attentively built, scientifically beautiful car – though the windscreen is massive and destined to get filthy in 10 types of awfulness as soon as you get off the track. You can only exert control up to a point.

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

WHAT MEN WANT With patches of snow on the ground and reportedly ice on the track, we drink coffee and hear whispers of Top Gear’s race car driver The Stig’s time on the track in the McLaren being one minute 16 seconds. This is the second fastest lap the programme has ever seen. What’s the best time for a journalist, we want to know…

A plump man from a Bahraini newspaper lavished a necklace from Tiffany’s on his wife to compensate her for his absence on Valentine’s Day. He chose to come to the McLaren compound instead. The jewellery expense was worth it for him to drive the new McLaren on the famous Top Gear track at Dunsfold. Beyond the greasy, political juggernaut that Top Gear and Jeremy Clarkson have become (for being anti-global warming and casually racist towards Asians), the show undoubtedly epitomises a male love of fast cars. Standing a few hundred metres from where the show is filmed (a hanger just beside the track) is like being drenched in male insecurity and ego.

I know in my blood that I want to race faster than the plump guy from Bahrain. I have no training and a long-proven cowardice, but I believe my inherent manliness – once out on the track – will propel me forward.

I’m excited, but suddenly worried that I’m going to forget how to drive or crash into the

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SPORTING PROWESS

The Running Man At the pinnacle of his game, Capetonian ultra-trail runner Ryan Sandes has shown the world what mind over matter really means.

Words KEITH BAIN

Dubbed the driest place on earth, some parts of the Atacama Desert haven’t had any rain since recordkeeping began. As far as extremes go, it’s only fitting that it comprises one leg of the gruelling 4 Deserts Challenge

‘IF IT’S THE LAST STEP I TAKE AND I FALL OVER DEAD, THEN SO BE IT...’

In another life, Ryan Sandes might have been a Hollywood heartthrob. He has the full package; looks, physique, just the right balance between being taciturn and sensitive. Instead, he’s found an addiction. But whereas many find their poison at the bottom of a bottle or in powder form, he gets his fix by slipping into a pair of high-tech running shoes and vanishing down an off-road trail. Often the 30-year-old doesn’t come back for days. And, when he does, it’s after putting his body through hell. That’s what it takes to finish ahead of the pack.

But winning isn’t everything. ‘I do try to just focus on enjoying being out there,’ he says, but his hunger is such that he needs to make a race of it. He’s wired for victory. Yet, with each success comes a feeling of emptiness: having trained long and hard for a race, the finish line means it’s over.

‘I immediately need to find a new challenge. I’m testing how far I can push my physical and mental boundaries. Running is a bit like a drug you crave and it’s become a daily requirement in my life.’

The extreme version of the sport takes running back to its prehistoric roots, testing survival and endurance as much as speed.

Two years after discovering his talent for distance – he was a so-called ‘late bloomer’ at 25 – he finished one of the world’s toughest races. First.

Winning the Gobi March, a seven-day, 250km, self-supported race with temperatures nudging 54°C was a near miracle. It was his first serious race after breezing through his virgin marathon

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SPORTING PROWESS

in 2006. He’d run the Knysna Marathon on a whim with zero training, fewer expectations. But the Gobi Desert was a real challenge. He trained his backside off for that.

‘I was quite nervous. I got to the halfway mark and was completely out of it. I hadn’t been drinking or eating enough. I was dehydrated, my vision blurry. I didn’t know if I was going to collapse or what was going to happen.’ He’d set himself one goal. To finish. It was do or die.

When Ryan reached the final checkpoint, though, he discovered his life purpose coming into focus. He was in second place. With two or three kilometres to go, he passed the lead runner.

‘During the last few hundred metres, I had tears in my eyes because in my wildest dreams I just didn’t expect to do well,’ he recalls.

Instead of being carried off on a stretcher, his serendipitous success in the Gobi kick-started a career that has seen him turn pro and compete in the most challenging environments on earth. He won three other races in the 4 Deserts Challenge, a series of multi-stage events that took him to the Sahara in Egypt, the Atacama in Chile, and ‘The Last Desert’ in Antarctica. His training has included running on a freeze-proof treadmill in an ice chamber.

He’s won the Jungle Marathon in the Amazon, and last year the gruelling Leadville Trail 100 Ultramarathon, a 160km race in the Colorado Rockies. He finished in just under 16 hours and 47 minutes, with a 32-minute lead. He logged the third-fastest time in the race’s history.

Ryan was clearly born to run. Catch a glimpse of him tearing through the wilderness and it’s his look of calm exhilaration and an effortless spring to his running style that reminds us that we come into this world with just the right mechanics for the job; we were designed to move.

Only when you’re aware of the great distances involved do you realise he’s a runner’s version of a savant, simultaneously channelling athletic

Training for ‘The Last Desert’ in Antarctica included running on a freeze-proof treadmill in an ice chamber, but nothing prepares the runner for nature at her most extreme

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His running style reminds us

that we come into this world with just the right mechanics for the job; we were designed to move.

ISSUE 15 P R I V A T E E D I T I O N 4 3

‘Human beings are designed to run all day.

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If you look at the San, you see we’re made to run our prey into a coma; chase it until it falls over.’

The dunes near Atlantis, just north of Cape Town, might get most of us down, but for Ryan, who is one of only 81 runners to have completed the 4 Deserts Challenge, it’s a cinch

ISSUE 15 P R I V A T E E D I T I O N 4 5

genius and Buddha-like calm in a sport that’s easily equated with lunacy. This superprowess could also explain key moments in the physiological evolution of our species.

‘Human beings are designed to run all day.

If you look at the San, you see we’re made to run our prey into a coma; chase it until it falls over.’

He’s referring to what is known as ‘persistence hunting’, documented among various aboriginal groups, including the Kalahari San, and used as evidence linking human physiological evolution with our natural capacity to run for extended periods. He’s not just a world-champion athlete; he taps into an ancient and innate ability.

While our ancestors were motivated by their need to hunt and escape predators, you’ve got to question why someone would set off for an eight-hour run for fun.

What he experiences as ‘bliss’, most would call self-inflicted torture. ‘A lot of what I do is mental. About 40 percent. You’ve got to have a certain mental attitude.’

For anyone wearied by routine, he’s in an enviable position. He’s constantly exploring, discovering and, as he likes to say, expressing himself through what he loves. While we can physically plot where he goes, it’s a whole other discourse figuring out what’s happening inside him. ‘Sometimes I just switch off,’ he says. ‘It’s a release. An escape from reality.’

The ‘real world’, which involves being around lots of people and ‘media stuff’, can get a bit much for him. ‘I’m actually quite a reserved,

quiet person. So I enjoy getting out for five, six hours. My own world.’

Ryan’s world is his meditative retreat, the inner terrain. Inaccessible to the rest of us, it’s where the mechanisms of his consciousness operate while his mind is still. ‘I almost feel like I get pulled out of my body and look down at everything. I think a lot more clearly. Everything makes a lot more sense.’ In this state – similar to that achieved by the trance dancing of ancient shamans – he claims he solves problems and deals coherently with complex issues.

It’s a little different when he’s racing; when the route is extremely technical, his focus shifts to account for the on-the-move strategising required to stay alive, navigating precipitous cliffs, manoeuvring between rocks and other obstacles, avoiding, whenever possible, the occasional wild animal.

For Ryan, extreme distances are like great teachers, imparting knowledge that comes from within. Running takes him into unchartered personal territory. ‘You learn a lot about yourself when you’re running 100km and you get to 50km and things aren’t going your way.

You’ve got to dig pretty deep.’

Sure, there are mornings, particularly during hard training weeks, when he doesn’t feel like another run. But once the shoes are on and he’s out on the trails, he shifts gears fairly swiftly. ‘The day I start not enjoying it, or feel it’s a job, or I have to do it, is when I’ll stop.’

That said, his affair with the trails has been

carefully planned; he’s been building a career and diversifying. There are only so many bodycrunching races you can cram into a year, and he has to balance the interests of his sponsors with his own goals. Two races in particular have his attention: the famed Western States 100 in the US, and the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc – 166km with 9 500m of alpine altitude gain.

Variety being critical, though, Ryan is always mixing his dance card. He finished off 2011 taking part in the Mark Webber Tasmania Challenge, a team charity event that pulls together running, mountain biking, kayaking, and even some abseiling. Where there’s adventure, and opportunity to experience more of the world, he’s keen to participate. Even if the event doesn’t quite bring on the hallucinations and extreme body punishment of Leadville.

Earlier this year, he already shaved almost two hours off the previous record of the Hong Kong 100km Ultra. He won, of course, joking in his blog post that his sub-10-hour finish was perhaps a bit slow – and blaming tired legs on this being his first race of the season. He is, after all, compellingly human.

One theory suggests that running is attempted escape, often from a deep-seated issue. But Ryan isn’t running away. He runs to experience a state of weightless consciousness.

Perhaps it is this that gives him the gift of flight, his own ‘lightness of being’.

For more information, visit www.ryansandes.com

When Shackleton navigated his ship, the Endurance, through the South Polar continent, he’d never have predicted that the future would see endurance runners tackling Antarctica on foot 00

P R I V A T E E D I T I O N ISSUE 15

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF RACINGTHEPLANET LTD, ZANDY MANGOLD, CRAIG KOLESKY

SPORTING PROWESS

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MIND GAMES

Shrinks on the Links Is golf about physical prowess, technique or mental strength? Some of the big names on the circuit say that it’s all in the head.

Words MIKE WILSON

Camaraderie between players (in this case, Branden Grace) and caddie (Zack Rasego) goes so far. That’s when the shrink steps in

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AT ANY PRESTIGIOUS professional golf event – take the South African Open Championship or the recent Volvo Golf Champions at The Links at Fancourt – you’ll notice that worldclass golfers, many of them multi-millionaires, are surrounded by an entourage of agents, advisers and family support.

Apart from the caddie, who is there to clean the clubs, toss the balls and maybe even make a perceptive observation, there’s a swing coach using the naked eye and stateof-the-art analysis technology to analyse the biomechanics of sport’s ‘Holy Grail’: the perfect golf swing. Sometimes there are two or even

three such advisers; one for the long game, one for the short and, arguably, the key man who can help the player deposit that small, white ball (with a diameter of not less than 42,67mm and weighing no more than 45,93g) into a small hole measuring 108mm or less, in as few shots as possible. Then there’s the physio/fitness coach, who helps transform top players from the well-upholstered to, at best, the ripped.

‘The good walk spoiled,’ according to American author Mark Twain, has evolved into a game with the ability to worm its way inside our heads, playing cruel mind games there, occasionally offering moments of elation, more

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

MIND GAMES

often wreaking untold damage to the golfer’s typically fragile psyche. But in the past decade, the ‘mind coach’ or ‘master of motivation’ has been added to the usual suspects in the retinue.

Miracle worker or snake-oil salesman? If, after consulting a golf psychologist guru, you win – and you win big – he’s a genius worth every dollar of his fat fee.

Take 29-year-old South African star Louis Oosthuizen, who served his apprenticeship as a journeyman pro before working with Englishman Dr Karl Morris, one of Europe’s leading mind coaches. Oosthuizen was into his eighth season on the circuit, approaching 150 events without a win, when he started working with Morris, a disciple of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) who also uses hypnosis (armed with a clinical qualification accredited by the National Council for Hypnotherapy UK).

The good doctor is an advocate of visualisation and imagination techniques and a PGAqualified golf professional to boot.

Oosthuizen earned his maiden European Tour title in Spain in 2010; a routine, runof-the-mill win with a healthy R1,7 million champion’s cheque before hitting the jackpot – winning the 2010 Open Championship at St Andrews by seven clear shots and banking R10 million plus. He attributed his new-found success, in part at least, to his mind coach.

‘Working with Karl has been tremendous,’ says Oosthuizen, who has gone on to win twice more on home soil. ‘He gave me a very clear understanding of how important my routines were on each and every shot.’

But for all the psychobabble, Oosthuizen’s success came down to something as pragmatic as Morris suggesting a red dot marked on his golf club, a focal point on which to focus during every shot. ‘It was brilliant. The red dot worked perfectly. The last round at St Andrews summed up all of the work,’ he says, although what can never be incontrovertibly asserted was that it was Morris’s small red dot that won Oosthuizen the Open.

Surprisingly, perhaps, another South African who has worked with and benefited from sports psychology is Ernie Els – the ‘Big Easy’, a man to whom life in general and golf in particular appear to come so easily that a mind coach might have been superfluous. But, as Els explains, ‘I’ve been with Jos Vanstiphout for a long time [and] I speak to Dr Bob Rotella every

now and then. It’s basically the same stuff.

They really can’t teach you anything new; they just reiterate it.’

Reigning US Masters champion Charl Schwartzel is another who has worked with Morris; Retief Goosen and Hennie Otto with Vanstiphout; while veteran Darren Clarke, who replaced Oosthuizen as Open Champion last year, is a client of Rotella, the current flavour of the month regarding mind games and golf.

Asked with the Claret Jug firmly in his grip what part the good doctor had played, Clarke commented, ‘He charged me a lot of money, so I can’t tell you that [but] he knows me inside out [and] we’ve worked together for a very long

Miracle worker or snake-oil salesman? If, after consulting a golf psychologist guru, you win – and you win big – he’s a genius worth every dollar of his fat fee. time [so] a lot of that [maiden ‘Major’ victory] has been down to Dr Bob Rotella.’

While these masters of the mental machinations of golf are helping players such as Oosthuizen, Els and Otto to believe they can win, the golf gurus are working for rival players too. Figures are rarely divulged, but the buzz on the practice range suggests that a series of consultations with Drs Rotella or Morris could cost a tour professional upwards of R1 million.

For lesser mortals, club golfers can purchase Morris’s seminal work, The Champion Code, for less than R3 000, and a one-on-one session for up to R10 000. If that sounds a little rich, then there’s always the man – or women – on the bag. Rule 8.1 in the Rules of Golf states that, ‘During a stipulated round, a player must not: a) give advice to anyone in the competition playing on the course or, b) ask for advice from anyone other than his caddie.’

In South African legend Gary Player’s day, the maxim for a caddie was to ‘turn up, keep up and shut up’, but like most aspects of contemporary professional golf, the bagman (as the only source of advice or encouragement on the course) has become key to some players.

Take Soweto-born caddie Zack Rasego, a single-figure-handicap player and veteran Tour

caddie. Rasego had carried for Oosthuizen for seven moderately successful years before his man won twice in 2010, earning the Sowetan a reported R1,5 million for those two wins alone. Yet players change caddies almost as often as Zsa Zsa Gabor changed her husband, with Oosthuizen and Rasego parting company last year and the player winning once more, defending his Africa Open title, with childhood friend Wynand Stander as his on-course confidante. Rasego arguably fared even better than his former boss, joining forces with his compatriot, the hitherto unheralded Branden Grace, who won back-to-back titles on home soil at the start of this year; first the South African Open, followed seven days later by the Volvo Golf Champions, grossing over R5 million for his fortnight’s work.

He paid fulsome tribute to Rasego, who would’ve banked an estimated R700 000 including bonuses. ‘Zack really helped me out over the last couple of holes by refreshing my mind. He told me to relax and that I have won before and I should just relive that moment [and] it was the right advice – he was amazing throughout the week.’

A reluctant hero, and certainly not someone who sees himself in the same league as those ‘shrinks on the Links’, Rasego said of his role before joining up with Grace: ‘I’m part of a team out there; just me and my player, and I see it as my job to help him out in any way I can. The basics are making sure the clubs are all present and correct, and everything he needs from waterproofs to food and drinks are on board before we go out. I’m the man on the yardages and the weather; it is the player’s decision what club selection he goes for, although I’ll make some suggestions based on how he is striking the ball. A caddie needs to know golf. He is more like a coach [and] the golfer relies on what the caddie tells him. You have to be tuned in to what’s happening in the player’s mind; encourage, reassure, keep him calm and focused.’

Golf is heading back into the Olympics in four years’ time with an assured explosion of worldwide interest. ‘Golf is a puzzle without an answer,’ Player once said. It seems that the golf psychologists disagree and make a tidy sum persuading their clients that the Black Knight’s got it wrong. There is an answer. And it’s all in their heads.

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WORLD TREND: BRAIN POWER

Brain anatomy from a 19thcentury artwork in the 1886 ninth edition of Moses and Geology (Samuel Kinns, London).

Almost 130 years on, the brain has become the focus of intense research with ‘brain health’ becoming the new wealth

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WORLD TREND: BRAIN POWER

A Beautiful Mind The most important status symbol for 2012? Not lineless skin, or a taut, youthful body, but a brain that’s firing on all cylinders.

Words TABITHA LASLEY Additional research HANNAH MOORE

IN NOVEMBER LAST YEAR, MEC Humphrey Mmemezi’s ‘blue-light brigade’ driver jumped a red traffic light and knocked 18-yearold matric student Thomas Ferreira off his motorbike. Swelling, haemorrhaging of the brain and fractured limbs left him in a coma for several weeks. On 30 December 2011, he was transferred to the Life Riverfield Lodge Rehabilitation Unit in Randburg. He dropped from 70 to 49 kilograms in weeks. Nobody imagined that Ferreira would begin to recover and start stringing together sentences so soon after the ordeal.

In early January, he emerged from his full coma and progressed from a so-called low response state to confusional state – a form of delirium characterised by disturbances in cognition and levels of awareness. Since then, however, Ferreira has started eating on his own and can even take a few aided steps – a powerful demonstration of the brain’s ability to regenerate itself, even after it has sustained unthinkable trauma.

‘Thomas is now able to distinguish between information relevant to the task and unrelated information,’ explains Dr KJ Mon, his physician at Riverfield Lodge. ‘Miraculously, he’s started to behave in an appropriate and purposeful way in complex social situations.’

In terms of both the shock he sustained and the trajectory he’s following to regain his skill set, Ferreira shares similarities with

a much higher profile case – that of Gabrielle ‘Gabby’ Giffords. Giffords is the US congresswoman who was shot through the left side of her brain (the area that deals with language) last January. The bullet entered just above her left eye and travelled the full length of the left side of her brain. At first, she was reported to be dead. She survived, and every stage of her convalescence – from those first images of her prone in hospital and the removal of part of her skull to ease the pressure, to her halting appearance on ABC News last November – has drawn breathless media coverage. She was recently named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People. In January this year, she announced her resignation from Congress, but not before more than $800 000 was raised for her re-election campaign.

Giffords’ return to health has fired American imagination, partly due to the high drama of her story, but also because we’re increasingly preoccupied with the workings of the human brain. Just look at the bestseller lists last year.

There was SJ Watson’s thriller Before I Go To Sleep, the story of a woman with amnesia who has to relearn her life each morning, which became the biggest-selling debut since Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Or neuroscientist Sam Harris’ book The Moral Landscape, in which he argues there’s a scientific basis for morality, as evinced by mapping the brain. Or how about My Life, Deleted, Scott Bolzan’s memoir of memory

loss, apparently one of the most severe cases ever recorded?

Meanwhile, films like Limitless, (which sees Bradley Cooper’s character get hooked on a drug that enables him to access the whole of his brain) and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (where a troupe of chimps develop human levels of intelligence after ingesting a new cure for Alzheimer’s) packed out cinemas everywhere.

Marian Salzman, a US trend analyst with a habit of getting things right (she coined the term ‘wigger’, predicted the rise of the metrosexual and foresaw the sub-prime crisis) registered the trend 12 months ago, but says that 2012 will be the year of the brain: ‘The real status symbol today is a quick brain. Brain health will be the new definition of wealth. Neurosurgeons will be the new rock stars. The ability to keep learning, keep processing, keep multitasking – it’s the new sign of youth.’

If the last decade was dominated by the quest for youthful skin, this next one will be all about the ageless brain. And just as our goal of lineless, poreless perfection created a whole new arm of non-surgical aesthetics, Salzman says the pursuit of a beautiful mind will power a new multi-billion dollar industry: ‘We’ve seen puzzles like Sudoku go stratospheric.

There have been lots of conversations about superfoods that make you brainier. Now I think we’ll see online education be up and back in a really big way.’

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WORLD TREND: BRAIN POWER

One reason why brain function is at the forefront of our thoughts right now is because we’re an ageing population, one that’s getting older all the time. John Ratey, clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, says this shifting demographic means more of us have direct experience of dementia: ‘People in firstworld countries aren’t afraid of diseases any more. But they are afraid of losing their minds.

They’re scared of losing their cognitive faculties, because they’ve seen it among their friends and relatives. And who wants to stay alive for 10 more years if you’re not aware of yourself and the world?’

These fears have found expression in the growing number of studies on boosting brainpower and delaying mental declension.

Rare is the week that goes by without some startling new research being published on the topic. The more we find out about the workings of the mind, the greater our thirst for knowledge becomes.

A cursory glance at recent headlines will bear this out. There was the study that showed serotonin levels could affect our sexual preference; the research that indicates willpower may be the key to lasting happiness and the scientists who’ve discovered an enzyme with the potential to wipe out memories (reminiscent of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film written and directed by Michel Gondry).

Then there are the findings that crosswords can postpone the onset of Alzheimer’s, or that anxiety disorders could soon be ‘switched off’ by

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tweaking our cerebral circuitry, or that human beings who live at higher latitudes develop larger brains and bigger eyes to cope with the lack of light. The list goes on and on.

Cognitive neuroscientist Ellen Bialystok led the team behind one such study. Their research found that bilingual brains cope better with the vicissitudes of Alzheimer’s. Bialystok thinks learning another language to fluency may help preserve the brain’s white matter – the fatty tissue around nerve cells through which messages are sent – even when surrounding grey matter has deteriorated. ‘I think it’s part of a much bigger story, the cognitive reserves story, that all stimulating intellectual activities are good for your brain.

‘This is what we hear all the time; do crossword puzzles, join clubs. I think these activities build up better reserves of white matter, which enables people to function when other systems – notably grey matter brain cells – become compromised.’

Like Ratey, she’s noticed the recent surge of interest in the brain and attributes it to the same contemporary concerns: ‘We’re all getting older.

People are terrified of dementia. I’ve noticed there’s suddenly this enormous industry that’s built up around brain gyms and exercises.

People are willing to pay a lot of money and go to great lengths to try anything that will protect their brains. The problem is, nearly all of it is utterly worthless.’

She classes most brain training games as ‘snake oil’. Whatever those headline-grabbing studies claim, there are no shortcuts to a healthy brain. On the contrary, Ratey’s recent work has

found the old Platonic ideal of a healthy mind in a healthy body to be nearest to the mark. He says aerobic exercise, and the attendant boost in blood flow to the brain, remains our best line of defence against cognitive decline. Both he and Bialystock agree that retiring without pursuing a secondary passion can be disastrous; if the brain isn’t stimulated, it’ll slow, slacken and atrophy. The answer? Stay engaged. Join a club, learn a language, get a hobby. Travel, do Sudoku, take classes. The mind loves novelty, so seek out new experiences.

If the cure sounds boringly prosaic, the reality is anything but. The brain has an astonishing capacity for both regeneration and creating fresh connections. Ratey has found that with enough physical and mental exercise, people can actually increase their IQ score by several points. More encouraging still is the news that an injured brain can often compensate for damage sustained, as healthy sections assume the functions of affected areas.

Ferreira is a case in point. Four months on from his accident, his progress has been extraorinary by any physician’s standards. It’s impossible to tell whether this young man will recover fully, but if the human will to survive and the brain’s remarkable ability to heal itself are significant factors, then, as his parents Paul and Priscilla hope so desperately, he will complete his matric over the next few years and lead a normal, productive life. In the meantime, MEC Humphrey Mmemezi might engage his politician’s brain a little more strategically when it comes to time management and heed the old adage ‘more haste, less speed’.

ILLUSTRATION: GALLO IMAGES/GETTYIMAGES

New findings show that crosswords may postpone the onslaught of Alzheimer’s and anxiety disorders can be cured by tweaking our cerebral circuitry.

D E LA I R E

E S T A T E

Delaire Graff Estate Helshoogte Pass Stellenbosch South Africa www.100x100capri.it ~ www.delaire.co.za

Thoroughbred Photography JACQUES WEYERS Styling SUZANNAH GARLAND

Eighteen months ago, Katryn Kruger was a 15-year-old netball enthusiast from Tygerberg.

Today, she earns around R200 000 a day as SA’s hottest new fashion export.

[Previous page] Vintage lace top R2 200, Reindeer; vintage brown velvet ribbon, stylist’s own.

[This page] Katryn wears a polo shirt R1 895, Burberry; white jodhpurs R393, Laird Leatherware; belt R4 800, Gucci; Calibre watch R54 300, Cartier.

Devin wears collared shirt R1 095, denims R1 995 and striped tie R895, all Gant; belt R4 650, Louis Vuitton; Ballon Bleu Chronograph R74 700, Cartier

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[Opposite] Kathryn wears a vintage lace slip R1100, Reindeer, brown petticoat worn as a skirt R295, Alexandra Hรถjer ; white lace cami slip used as a petticoat R2000, Stefania Moreland; knee-high woolen lace socks R475, Paul Smith; gumboots, stylists own. [Above] Devin wears a patch pocket jacket R7750, Paul Smith; striped polo shirt R1495, Burberry; purple polo shirt R450, Superdry at Union Made; vintage spotted cravat R1820, Paul Smith.

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[Opposite] Katryn wears a woven jacket R4 410, Paul Smith; satin and mesh ivory top R1 800, Kl没k/CGDT; vintage hat, price on request, Reindeer.

[Above] Katryn wears T-shirt R400, Shana by Stefania Moreland; black pants R3 200 and leather boots R4 690, both Burberry; Santos 100 watch R54 800, Cartier

Devin wears a patch pocket jacket R7 750, Paul Smith; white polo shirt R499, Ben Sherman; silk scarf R1 240, Paul Smith Models: Katryn Kruger/Y Models and Devin Paisley/Outlaws; hair and make-up: Merle Titus/Infidels; photographer’s assistant: Chris van Aswegen; fashion assistant: Jacqui Turner; post-production: Set Digital.

Additional post-production: Blink.

Shot on location and with special thanks to Val de Vie Wine Estate: www.valdevie.co.za, and Matthew, polo pony extraordinaire.

STOCKISTS: Ben Sherman 021 425 8996/ 011 684 2969 Burberry 021 425 8933 Cartier 011 666 2800 Gant 021 425 5317/ 011 883 4670 Gucci 021 421 8800 Klûk/CGDT 083 377 7780 Laird Leatherware 021 511 5008/9 Louis Vuitton 021 405 9700/ 011 784 9854 Paul Smith 021 418 0007 Reindeer 021 801 0849 Union Made 021 418 1948

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INSIDE TRACK

OPPOSITE: KATRYN WEARS A VINTAGE LACE SLIP R1 100, REINDEER. INSET PHOTOGRAPH: SUPPLIED BY LOUIS VUITTON

TRUNK SHOW Louis Vuitton artistic director Marc Jacobs had his models arrive by train at the Paris show. She’s got the look: Katryn was among them

HOLLYWOOD WOULD’VE LOVED this opening scene. It’s Sunday morning and 15-yearold school girl Katryn Kruger, a Tygerberg High School pupil and netball player, is shopping with her parents in Canal Walk in Cape Town.

She’s just come from church. She’s a striking young woman, caught somewhere between the coltishness of adolescence and the first hint of womanhood in her bones.

She’s tall. Now that’s the clincher. At 1,81m, blue-green-eyed, leggy and with a swan-like neck and exquisite skin, she’d look smashing in a sack. In couture? A knockout. Actor Robert Bester was also shopping that particular day and spotted Katryn. After first approaching her somewhat startled mother, Aletta, and Katryn’s younger brother Albert, he assured them – and moments later, Katryn’s father, Pieter – that he wasn’t some crazed stalker, and begged them to stay put so he could call his then wife Patricia Stidworthy, ex-model and partner of Y Models in Cape Town. A bit like finding the model version of the 550-carat Letšeng Star in Botswana, the serendipitous discovery of Katryn that morning would culminate in one of the biggest recent international ‘new face’ discoveries.

A few weeks ago, Katryn, who turns 17 this April, had already done five shows in Paris in

as many days and has walked for many dream clients such as Giambattista Valli, Louis Vuitton, Sonia Rykiel, Givenchy, Chloé and Valentino, for whom she opened and closed. That topped a coveted Prada campaign, one of the most sought-after in the industry.

Late last year, she shot over several days with one of the industry legends, photographer Steven Meisel, who suggested that she stay on as there was a possible Vogue magazine shoot for which she’d be perfect. ‘Oh I can’t,’ she’d said.

‘I have to write my end of year maths exam.

Perhaps another time...’

The other time has come and fashion weeks in New York, London, Milan and Paris have passed in a blur of runways, lights and outré fashion. In February, she arrived for New York Fashion Week to a hotel room bursting with free fashion and designer accessories from all the great houses – and a letter from Bill Clinton inviting her to a dinner in honour of former president Nelson Mandela.

‘I love it,’ she says, between changes for her cover shoot with Private Edition earlier this year. ‘It’s so exciting.’ The head booker for her SA agency Y Models, Gavin Miller, says it’s this charming, unpretentious and teenage ‘whatever’ attitude that’s endeared her to a slew of top

models such as Natasha Poly, who’ve taken her under their wing.

Miller believes she’s a runaway industry success because she has a ‘relevant look’ for now, reminiscent of supermodel Arizona Muse’s dark tresses and heavy brows. ‘The fashion world is looking for a good balance of healthy and glamour. High-end clients have realised that it wasn’t working trying to sell a $100 000 dress modelled on spaced-out, emaciated form.’ The bottom line is that big names in the industry are prepared to invest in the best brand ambassador.

Katryn now commands an average of R200 000 a day for her work.

Miller describes Katryn’s look as ‘interesting’ – and, note, he doesn’t use the word ‘beautiful’.

Neither does she. ‘My nose isn’t great and...’ She lists her minor flaws while, as an interviewer, one tries not to stare at what Miller calls her ‘Russian princess old-world elegance’, the combination of which has the foreign fashion press buzzing.

While an ingénue to the profession might find a behind-the-scenes chat to supermodel Gisele Bündchen intimidating, Katryn found her ‘warm and helpful’. She might need every bit of support she can get. It’s a jungle out there, even if the wild animals are usually found only on the models themselves. – Les Aupiais

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AN MTN INITIATIVE

One Child, One Tree and One Bicycle at a Time

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

MTN’s Qhubeka project addresses some of the socio-economic challenges that face the multitude of disadvantaged communities countrywide.

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AN MTN INITIATIVE

Among its other objectives, the Qhubeka initiative equips children who have to walk long distances to school with much-needed wheels

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AN MTN INITIATIVE

THERE ARE 16 MILLION schoolchildren in South Africa. Of the 12 million who reach school on foot every day, about 500 000 children walk more than two hours each way.

MTN Business believes that alleviating the hardship these children suffer by having to walk four hours to and from school daily is critical to their development – from an educational, physical and emotional perspective.

The division has supported cycling for years, so the opportunity to extend its focus and passion to build communities and drive greener environments through a partnership with the Wildlands Conservation Trust and Qhubeka was a natural fit.

Qhubeka, which means ‘move forward’, is a corporate social investment project that aims to help rural communities do just that by providing bicycles for children who can’t afford them. In return, the children work to improve their environment and communities by planting/growing trees and recycling waste.

This initiative promotes a cleaner and greener environment – 100 trees equals one bicycle.

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‘We, together with our customers, can make a massive impact on these children’s lives,’ says Nomalanga Nkosi, General Manager: Business Marketing at MTN Business.

‘What’s more, this is the first time that companies and individuals have the opportunity to embark on a social responsibility initiative while simultaneously addressing their communications requirements. We’re exceptionally excited about this project and know it will be well received, as many of our customers share our ethos of building communities,’ says Nkosi.

So how can organisations get involved? It’s easy. Select an MTN Business Qhubeka product or service and your organisation will help to uplift a community. The corporate spend helps to roll out Qhubeka bicycles to children in the Wildlands communities.

The MTN Business Qhubeka product offering consists of enterprise solutions that offer voice, data and ISP solutions. These products are customised according to the total spend of the individual or company and a

portion of the discounted rate is donated to the inspirational Qhubeka initiative.

The benefits that accrue to these communities from such initiatives not only include reducing the time it takes for children to walk to school by up to 75 percent, but it also allows them to get to school on time without exhaustion or fatigue – enabling them to concentrate better and get the education they deserve.

Additionally, through the introduction of the sport of cycling into these communities and boosting local economies through the creation of new industries centred on Qhubeka bicycles, it also encourages cultural activities to support increasingly self-sustainable communities.

MTN Business is committed to mobilising business potential through its communication solutions as well as mobilising and uplifting disadvantaged communities.

When you purchase an MTN Qhubeka product or solution, you take a step closer to a greener future and become a transport provider for those who need it most.

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Select an MTN Business Qhubeka product or service and your organisation will help to uplift a community.

The corporate spend helps to roll out Qhubeka bicycles to children in the Wildlands communities.

TJDR51854

How can 100 trees help a child overcome his greatest obstacle?

In South Africa, many children spend exhausting hours walking along dusty roads to school. They arrive tired and struggle to concentrate if they’re able to arrive at all. However, through Qhubeka and MTN Business, this is changing. Working in partnership with the Wildlands Conservation Trust, Qhubeka and MTN Business are providing bicycles to children that have either grown 100 trees or collected over 1500 kg of recycling. So, children can cycle to school, arrive on time, have a chance to reach their potential and have a better future.

How can your company help?

With an MTN Business Qhubeka contract, your business can positively uplift communities and the environment while receiving a range of enterprise voice, data and ISP solutions on a world-class network.

For more information, visit www.qhubeka.org

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‘Here is my Space’ The Okavango Delta works a particular bush magic on you. Combine water, wildlife and Wilderness Safaris and you get unexpected alchemy.

Words LES AUPIAIS AND IAN GLENN

THE OKAVANGO SHOULD BE ON ANY WILDLIFE ENTHUSIAST’S BUCKET LIST, partly because your view of it is likely to combine gliding through water in a mokoro, 4x4 explorations and flying in light aircraft or helicopters with a heaven’s eye view of a delta strewn with water mirrors that reflect the sky.

It’s December, the rainy season, when Wilderness Safaris offers ‘green season’ specials for South Africans. We’re tough enough to put up with the very minor inconvenience of bugs (a rich source of bird and bat food on the fly), thunderstorms and dealing with the challenge of animals being more dispersed.

To give full range to the experience, we visit three of the group’s camps, two of which are Classic Camps: Savuti, on the Savuti Spillway close to the delta, but not really part of it; Xigera (pronounced Kee-jera), the archetypal water camp, world centre for the Pel’s Fishing Owl and African Skimmer; and Mombo, Wilderness’ premier (which translates as nec plus ultra-luxury) on Chief’s Island.

Flying over the Okavango changes things.

Your attention splits between green-lined ponds and pans and palm-fringed islands that vie with high and mighty thunderclouds.

Lechwe run and egrets take off, herds of elephant move gravely and hippos bulge like wet hubcaps from the water. Watching this from the light aircraft, you think of Antony’s words in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra: ‘Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch; Of the rang’d empire fall! Here is my space…’

The mundane concerns of the selfimportant political worlds drop away. What are the Eurozone crisis, US indebtedness or the not-so-appealing Malema compared to this vision? What if we were to consume less, eat less, wear less, become a little less dominant and self-important? How does the apex

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Visitors and ‘locals’ alike have to weave their way through (or over) intricate waterways to fully experience Mombo Camp’s bounty

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and iPad portability spreads the experience more effectively than any formal marketing strategy.

Next is Xigera. The camp’s name is supposed to approximate the sound the Pied Kingfisher makes. As the river levels are down, the camp isn’t completely moated, but it’s close. There’s a fig tree heavy with fruit next to the swimming pool and a young bull elephant more or less takes up residence there during our visit, gorging on the spoils. If you’d fallen asleep on a lounger and woken, your horizon would be a solid cyclorama of wrinkled grey hide; he’s that close.

First duty at Xigera is to take the mokoro trip in the hope of seeing the rare Pel’s Fishing Owl. We’re lucky: not only an adult, but a juvenile as well – in one tree. They perch, hunched and slightly disdainful, several metres above our heads. Our sense of accomplishment is a little dented when we ask an American guest, who turns out to be leading conservation figure Holly Dublin, if she’s been to see the owls. No need, one took up residence for the afternoon on my deck, she says.

Another obligatory outing at Xigera through a series of reed-banked waterways is to the Xigera Lagoon, home to a large population of African Skimmers and other water birds. An afternoon alternates between a warm-water swim and trudging the banks with camera gear to try to capture one of the strangest fishing tricks on record: the Skimmers trailing their beaks through water to set up a phosphorescence trail that attracts fish – so that when the birds return for the second run, they catch the fish, having used themselves as bait.

We cap the five-day trip with a helicopter flight to Mombo in the heart of Chief’s Island, featuring some of the world’s most filmed animals. We watch a leopard female climb down a tree, surmising that she’s looking for a hollow tree to have her cubs. Apparently, she’s the daughter of celebrity leopard Legadema, star of the Jouberts’ film Eye of the Leopard.

Later, Dereck tells us that this daughter usurped her mother’s territory. We wonder if we’re seeing her carry the daughter who may supplant her in time.

Then we must return.

If the richness of the Okavango wildlife gets to you, you can better understand Antony’s disdain for a worldy world. Of course, a night in Mombo’s tented splendour, and cuisine and wine lists dreamt up by award-winning consulting chef Bruce Robertson, is enough to sway the head of even an emperor.

Mombo’s expansive deck enjoys pride of place on Chief’s Island; essentially a water camp, Xigera is the world centre for spotting the Pel’s Fishing Owl and African Skimmer WAYS AND MEANS For more information on Savuti Camp, Xigera Camp and Mombo Camp on Chief’s Island, contact Wilderness Safaris on 011 807 1800 or visit www.wilderness-safaris.com.

Air Botswana, based at Seretse Khama International Airport, Gaborone, operates and maintains a fleet of six aircraft comprising three ATR42-500s, two ATR72500 advanced turboprop aircraft and one BAe146 Jet. In addition to its responsibilities as a domestic carrier, it operates regional services (Johannesburg, Harare, Lusaka and Nairobi). The airline offers daily departures between OR Tambo International Airport and Maun Airport, with the flight duration about two hours. Travellers are advised to allow for a minimum of two hours connecting time between flights. Air Botswana also offers the convenience of purchasing e-tickets via www.airbotswana.co.bw or by contacting Reservations on 011 390 3070/1/2.

PHOTOGRAPHY: MIKE MYERS, COLIN BELL AND DANA ALLEN FOR WILDERNESS SAFARIS

predator and traveller find a way of fitting in?

While we’re having these thoughts, the plane’s landed in a wash of spray at Duba Plains, famous for being the base of filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert. We don’t notice until much later that the Jouberts themselves are boarding the plane – the runway is too wet for their own small aircraft to take off, and the legendary bush pilots (of whom National Geographic is making a documentary while we’re there) have to come to the rescue with a bigger craft.

Guidebooks to the Okavango (well, the ones we consulted) are worthy tomes full of stuff on geological sediments that don’t tell you the essentials. In the case of the Wilderness camps, particularly if you’re on a safari visiting more than one, you only need to know a few things: Premier Camps are more luxurious than the Classic Camps. And in terms of location: you can be near the Delta on the Savuti or in the Delta on a land-and-water camp like Xigera or on Chief’s Island. Ideally, you want to do a mix of camps, because the experience is richer for the balance.

Savuti Camp is outside the Delta and, until a few years ago, the spillway was set on a dry river bed. But it seems that a geological accident has effected a crucial change. Our guide, Carlton, suggests that there’s evidence that a slight earthquake and shift in the crust underlying the area meant that the river started flowing again after years, and now there’s permanent water.

The elephant overpopulation, which seemed to have damaged the area, changed as the herds dispersed. So Savuti is a wonderful space for elephant and the birding’s improved too.

The best viewing we experienced here was of a very pregnant hyena female heading off into the water to look for a suitable den, with a male looking on nervously. Carlton explains that hyenas have the most complex social structure of any mammal bar the primates, so expectations that the hyenas are part of a clan with a strong hierarchy may simply not fit. Change in climate; change in behaviour. It’s observation only that rewrites the old rule books on wildlife.

We meet Grant Atkinson here, a leading wildlife photographer who had worked for Wilderness for years and now specialises in photographic safaris. He sees the rise of the specialist photographic expedition, but also sees a change in the habits of ordinary tourists who often download their day’s photos onto their iPads for evening reviewing and enjoyment.

It’s a small but important trend for safari companies; better cameras, instant downloads

AN AFRICAN PRIDE HOTELS RELEASE The recently revamped African Pride 15 On Orange Hotel boasts a prime location in the heart of the Mother City

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUPPLIED

Sheer Opulence AFRICAN PRIDE 15 ON ORANGE HOTEL in Cape Town recently received an extensive revamp that involved the transformation of many of its public areas as well as the creation of a new conference centre. What’s more, the establishment’s six penthouses were also lavishly upgraded. Costing approximately R25 million, the revamp just adds to the considerable appeal of the hotel, which enjoys centre stage in the city that was voted TripAdvisor’s top destination for 2012.

Most of the expenditure during the upgrade went towards a new 240-seater multi-use conference centre, which brings the number of meetings venues in the hotel to 10. The hotel already had three worldclass boardrooms and a multi-purpose function room with a seating capacity of 60, and now also offers an additional conference centre with 38 individually controlled plasma screens and a total of 17 breakaway rooms. Similar to the initial set of boardrooms, the new conference

venue boasts top-notch technology including display screens and audiovisual equipment, as well as high-speed Wi-Fi connectivity. A full range of secretarial services is also offered.

Additional improvements include an upgrade of the rooftop swimming pool area and the Judges Lounge, an increase in size of the gourmet restaurant Savour and a R2,5 million revamp of Murano Bar, which now has an intimate Venetian dinner theatre feel – while still featuring thousands of Murano crystal links hanging over the circular bar.

The six penthouses include three suites with three bedrooms each, two suites with two bedrooms each and a one-bedroom suite. Aimed at top dignitaries, VIP travellers and the long-stay market (particularly within the production industry), the penthouses combine the comforts of home with the excellent service and gourmet food found in world-class hotels.

For more information on African Pride 15 On Orange Hotel, visit www.africanpridehotels.com/15-on-orange-hotel.html or call 021 430 5302

AFRICANPRIDEHOTELS.COM

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The Bigger Picture It’s not enough to offer luxury in the fiercely competitive safari lodge industry. It’s about blood, sweat equity and sustainability.

Words LES AUPIAIS

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Mirroring the sepia tones of its natural surrounds, Singita Faru Faru’s interior and outdoor spaces are all about earthy comfort

IT’S LATE AFTERNOON ON THE SINGITA GRUMETI RESERVES. The sky is biblical Renaissance, all shredded thunderheads and stabbing shafts of light. The bush pilot dodges the worst of the cumulus, lands as momentarily as a dragonfly on water and takes off nimbly.

A roughly painted sign nailed to a tree says ‘hatari pungaboi, beware propellas’. Noted.

Exit and look sharp.

The short dirt strip, barely visible in the veld, is touchdown point for guests coming to Singita Sasakwa Lodge. The lodge, the only Relais & Châteaux property in East Africa, is set on a rocky ridge above the plains of the 140 000 hectare reserve, which forms part of the greater Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem. The view from the veranda tends to stop guests in mid-sentence. Since ’94, when the reserve was proclaimed by the Tanzanian government, it’s become a critical protection zone for the vast wildebeest migration. It’s not the season for the ‘greatest show on earth’ but, in the hour to come, that will be of no consequence.

With scant light left, the decision is made to drive. The splendid luxury and cuisine of Singita Sasakwa Lodge must wait. Minutes later, the vehicle takes a slow sweep past the black rhino enclosure where breeding pairs are ‘hotelled’ and hopefully coaxed into doing the right thing for their threatened numbers, when guide Edward Kaaya spots a pride of 13 lion – one male, three females and a bunch of ‘teen’ cubs, joshing and mock charging tails, veld grass, their shadows. There’s no wind, so no olfactory alert for the zebra herd not 200 metres away. They graze, most of them heads down, and for several moments there’s a strange hiatus, a documentary-like freeze frame when predator and prey seem content to co-exist with nothing of the potential tension of

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the hunt. But the picture is ... wrong. One zebra is lying down. The mare is giving birth and her foal is half in and out of her body, struggling in the pale viscous placenta of the afterbirth. It gives a single, short cry.

The adult lion are instantly alert. One female slowly crouches and belly stalks her way, fixated on the anomaly in her line of sight: a prone animal. The mare lifts her head, alert and anxious. It’s a standoff for a few minutes until the lion makes her dash. She closes the 80-metre gap in seconds, the muscles of her body bunching and flexing. The zebra herd scatters, the mother hauls herself up and gallops off but stops and turns, torn between the instinct to save her young and her own survival.

The lioness has the foal by the neck and begins dragging it, alive, to the shade of trees, and calls to her cubs in guttural grunts. But there will be no lesson this day. The male gets up and saunters over, forces her to release her small prey, drags it to the shade of a dense thicket and begins to lick the blood and mucous from the foal’s hide. Its head sways. Only one cub is allowed to approach, the others mewl and dart around. Noone in the Land Rover has breathed or spoken.

No-one takes pictures. It seems a long time before it’s over. In the last moments of dusk, two black-backed jackal approach to wait and watch.

There will not be much to be scavenged from a few kilograms of soft bone and cartilage.

This is what you come for. This is what you will take with you when you leave.

The size of the zebra herd and the lion pride is a key indicator of what has changed here in the past decade. The journey from 2006, when Singita took up its management role of the property and the three lodges, has been a challenge. Famous for injecting a fresh and contemporary safari style into design and décor, Singita, from SA to Kenya, rapidly became the first word in exclusivity. Living magnificently has never been an issue for the group. The challenge, particularly in Tanzania, was to design lowimpact destinations viable enough to ensure the long-term sustainability of the reserves, establish essential community outreach programmes, bolster the infrastructure of the area and, critically, nail the poaching problem.

The illegal hunting of animals had impacted severely on the delicate ecosystem of the area and all but decimated some herds. If the Serengeti could no longer offer privileged travellers what wildlife documentaries so brilliantly promised, then there would be no future.

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Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, goes the saying. It says nothing of inviting them into the fold. Establishing a strong antipoaching unit meant converting the poachers themselves, all skilled trackers and keen observers of animal behaviour, and forming a 120-strong unit. A risky business that explored the smart notion of using the considerable talent you have at your disposal. The measure of the unit’s positive impact came in the figures: in 2003, the reserve recorded 600 buffalo; by 2008 that figure was up to 3 815. Giraffe numbers went from 331 to 803; impala from 2 000 to 11 942. With numbers on a steep upward trajectory (to date up to a 600 percent rise in population numbers) and the 76 beds of the three lodges ensuring a minimal footprint on the reserve, the combination has attracted an increasingly discerning traveller who understands that privilege and responsibility come hand in hand with an exceptional experience. They come, pay for the exclusivity and spread the word.

Today, revenue from generous support from guests helps to support local primary schools and the Environmental Education Centre. The lodges themselves help boost employment and by buying food for staff, provide local Tanzanians with the opportunity to grow and market agricultural produce. The brutal but natural balance of the hunt, kill and survival has its counterpart in the economics and social responsibility of the game. This is important, but nevertheless the subtext to a grand experience. It is, and always will be, a bloody great adventure.

Singita Sasakwa’s turn-of-the-century verandas, where high tea is served, give one an Out of Africa panorama of the plain below. The sky fills three quarters of your visual frame while, below, the water hole and acacia trees become the stage. You’re likely to dine at least once on chef Joseph Malenya’s East African dishes – sukumawiki (spinach in coconut milk), mtori (unripened banana and beef soup) and vanilla cream infused with chai spices – and dip crusty caramelised onion bread into nutty olive oil, all paired with wines from an imaginative list.

Or you’ll be treated to the cuisine of head chef Frank Louw, who rolls out a menu remarkable not only for its fine nuances, but also given one small obstacle to excellence: the lodge is in deep Tanzania – not a quick bakkie trip away from a smart organic market.

Despite his formidable reputation, he’s hard-pressed to coax guests from the bar area

where tales of the day’s sightings and the small challenges of a day in the life of a lodge manager make for chapters in a journal.

Not long ago, there was the small matter of a wild intruder in the four-bedroomed villa, unoccupied for a few days. The lodge manager, Mandy Cloete, called by the staff to deal with a ‘baboon’, found instead two holes in the ceiling, a smashed chandelier, torn drapes and, backed into one of the suite bathrooms, a male leopard with a bathmat between its jaws... A small matter of a cat, a mat and a minor illegal occupancy dealt with; it was all in a day’s work.

It’s an effective aide-mémoire: don’t return to your room without an askari at your side.

Birders may never want to leave this area.

Fischer’s Sparrow-larks, Abdim’s Storks, Yellowthroated Longclaws, Slate-coloured Boubous, Striped Kingfishers, Northern White-crowned Shrikes... the lifer list grows rapidly.

For an adventure somewhere between birds and a leopard at close quarters, the lodge has an equestrian centre. Centre? Perhaps ‘emporium’ would be closer to the mark. The tack room is what Louis Vuitton might do in equestrian mode: all dubbin-polished saddles, bridles, riding boots, and neatly folded jodhpurs, helmets, gloves – the kit you’ll need to ride a stellar lineup of ex-racehorses, show-jumpers, Boerperde and Percheron-crosses over the plains.

In contrast, the bush soundtrack at the contemporary style Singita Faru Faru Lodge, adjacent to the western corridor of the Serengeti, is ‘rain on canvas’ in a room with easily six metres of floor-to-roof glass and game viewing on tap while you shower or lie sprawled in one of the occasional chairs, binoculars ready.

A day of torrential rain made it impossible to experience Singita Grumeti’s latest concept in safari. The plains glitter with reflected groundwater in the breaking sunlight and camping is impossible. The mobile tented camp, Singita Explore, accommodates between two and 12 guests. Says CEO of Singita Game Reserves, Luke Bailes, ‘We see the return of raw authenticity, to days spent in the bush and nights under canvas in the wilderness. Singita Explore is pure distilled Africa without modern-day distractions.’ It comes in the wake of demand for ‘privacy, exclusivity and closeness to nature’. But a caveat: nature is what nature does.

It’s a reminder that you’re travellers in transit, observers and narrators, yet significant contributors to a bigger, much more important picture: Africa unplugged.

PHOTOGRAPHY: SINGITA GAME RESERVES

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PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF CAMP JABULANI

(CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Singita Explore’s mobile tented camp is designed for minimal energy consumption and environmental impact; maximum adventure is key; precious sighting; mouthwatering local dishes brimful of the freshest ingredients; conservation is crucial to ensure the survival of the Serengeti’s bounty; Singita Sasakwa’s inimitable views; Singita Faru Faru’s splendid accommodation

WAYS AND MEANS South African travellers require yellow fever certificates (available from travel clinics) and should take precautions against malaria.

A Tanzanian visa ($50 US) can be purchased on arrival at Dar es Salaam airport.

For further information, visit www.singita.com and www.grumetireserves.com.

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The sights, sounds and smells of the bush permeate every aspect of this retreat. Here, your body is pampered into blissful oblivion, rested beyond compare, nourished with excellent fare and enthralled – courtesy of Africa’s gentle giants

WAYS AND MEANS Camp Jabulani is located in a private Big Five game reserve in Hoedspruit, Limpopo Province. Daily one-hour flights are operated by South African Express between Oliver Tambo International Airport and Hoedspruit.

Complementary 20-minute road transfers are provided to/from Camp Jabulani from/to Hoedspruit Eastgate Airport. Direct SA Express flights are also available from Cape Town on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.

The camp is a five-hour drive from Johannesburg.

For more, visit www.campjabulani.com, call 012 460 7348 or email reservations@campjabulani.com.

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High and Mighty It’s an extraordinary experience riding on elephant back in the bush.

The animal tolerates you, but it’s best to keep in mind that you’re not the master.

PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF CAMP JABULANI

Words LES AUPIAIS

WALKING IN THE BUSH, tracker to the front and back rifles at the ready, your body is on high alert. What are you but a soft target for an irritable buffalo or a rhino that gets wind of your threat to its calf? And then there’s the slightly faster getaway option; the horseback safari.

You’re still vulnerable, but close enough to the bush to hear, smell and see it naturally.

On elephant back, you redefine the experience. You are, in essence, an apex predator three metres up on the world’s largest land mammal. You look into nests. You’re greenshoot height with a giraffe. It’s unlikely you’d be prey to anything bar a hunter.

But not here. Here you are with your guide in a protected private reserve as a tolerated rider.

‘Tame’ isn’t a word you should bandy about any wild animal, especially around a species that we’re just beginning to understand.

Riding the now famous 16-year-old Jabulani, you recall that elephants live to roughly human age, which makes him the equivalent of a skateboarding, baggie-shorted, iPod-wearing adolescent, but with excellent manners.

Camp Jabulani, named after him, is set in the 13 000 ha Kapama Private Reserve in Hoedspruit, where a small herd of elephants rescued from a Zimbabwean war zone now work a few hours a day for their keep. This is Jabulani’s adopted family.

At four months old, he’d been found wedged in the silt of a dam, and in danger of dying from dehydration. Taken in by the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre, the idea was to rehabilitate him and return him to the wild.

But elephants are social creatures, the complex relationship between matriachs, females in the herd and their calves still a subject of considerable research. What was clear was

that Jabulani – meaning ‘to rejoice’ – had no intention of abandoning his new ‘herd’, even if they walked on two legs and looked weird. The fateful rescue of the Zimbabwe dozen meant that the ‘mountain’ had figuratively come to Mohammed. What was extraordinary was that the traumatised animals that had been shipped by truck over the border immediately accepted the recalcitrant 3 000kg Jabulani and that, more importantly for the stability of the group, matriarch Tokwe had adopted him.

Riding him – or one of the other humantolerant members of the herd – puts you in a strange space. Camp Jabulani offers the only ‘after dark’ elephant-back safari and the experience is eerie. An elephant moves uncannily quietly for a creature of its size, the thick pads beneath its feet acting like a dense foam suspension system.

You undulate through the night acutely aware of wind and the deepening shadows. What you hear is their conversation, a sound that travels for kilometres. The low rumble seems to come from beneath you like an amplified growl in an echo chamber and because your legs are spread across its back, the noise seems to pass through your own body. The hair on your arms stands on end. You’re nothing but an eavesdropper to a conversation in a language you’ll never learn, never understand. It’s this experience that you take away with you. That and a growing sense that our often feeble social structures – broken relationships, scattered tribes, war and desire to acquire more than what we’ll need in several lifetimes – would seem bizarre to them. It’s difficult not feeling ‘unevolved’.

The next day, on a game drive, we park and observe the herd wallow in a large waterhole, spraying mud and churned water about. You

watch what seems to be rivalry on the edge of aggression between young bulls, notice that smaller members of the herd are playful and indulged, and that obvious deference is given to the matriarch. And that, strangely, they seem to be... joyful.

That night, we put them to bed. They’re stabled in a giant enclosure, given concentrated pellets and water. They’ve been free all day apart from the early and evening rides; and now they rest. Through the slatted enclosure Jabulani has stopped moving and his eye, fringed with the impossibly long spikes of his lashes, is fixed on us. It’s a dark rich brown, and just for a moment, you sense the 16 million years behind his kind.

And so to bed. Apart from the Big Five and the muddy dozen experience, Relais & Châteaux member Camp Jabulani will give you the best R&R you’ve had in years – from a long wallow in the suite’s egg-shaped bath to the first eighthour sleep in weeks in a mosquito-canopied bed under cool cotton sheets.

Here’s what came before: pea soup with crispy pancetta, sour cream and croutons; orange duck confit with potato fondant asparagus and a molasses jus; and then there was the pear tarte tatin served with vanilla cream.

If sleep, egg-bath wallow, and the food don’t quite unwind you then two hours at the Therapy Lapa will do you in: the outdoor deck opens to the bush and offers a comprehensive spa menu including body wraps, hand and foot treatments and rejuvenating therapies.

In those free blissful hours post early morning ride or drive, stay in your open plan suite with a lounge area, fireplace, and a private plunge pool with wooden deck overlooking a dry riverbed surrounded by the bush. Consider the break an essential survival tactic.

ISSUE 15 P R I V A T E E D I T I O N 4 79 7

PRIVATE EDITION SOCIAL EVENTS

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2 ELIZABETH ARDEN PREVAGE EXTRAVAGANZA Treating their clients and partners to a day filled with the latest beauty innovations, Elizabeth Arden’s latest event at the Saxon Boutique Hotel in Johannesburg was a roaring success.

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PHOTOGRAPHY: WERNER PRINSLOO

1) Heather Braybrooke. 2) Gina Meyers and Tahlecia Albertze. 3) Bentley chauffeured all the guests to the event.

Charmaine Beukes arrived in style.

4) Some of the delicious fare offered.

5) Delia Hoobe and Tara Kitching. 6) The lush setting at the Saxon Hotel. 7) Yael Fine and Les Aupiais. 8) Sandy McKenzie and Heather Kissack. 9) Wendy Wood and Penny Anstey. 10) Sameegha Samaai and Sylvia and Linda Cook.

11) The Elizabeth Arden Prevage range

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BROUGHT TO YOU IN CONJUNCTION WITH LEW GEFFEN SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY, PREVAGE, BENTLEY AND THE SAXON BOUTIQUE HOTEL

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PHOTOGRAPHY: JURIE SENEKAL

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GLAMOUR GALORE The 2012 Veuve Clicquot Masters Polo at Val de Vie Estate, one of the highlights on this year’s social calendar, marks the Champagne brand’s second year behind African polo. Guests were also entertained

by Viyella and Jenni Button models showing their latest fashion collections.

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1) Scene setter 2) Val de Vie’s polo fields 3) John Firth and Jeannie D 4) Jo-Ann Strauss and Victor Ferreira 5) Mamane Moeketsane and Michael Djan 6] Anina Malherbe, Henry Slier, Camilla Bernal 7] The main sponsor 8] Elana Afrika and Hakeem Kae-Kazim 9] Wayne Govender, Ikeraam Lottering, Sonia Bodla, Revaska Govender, Mark Gooding, Didi Kolane, Baker Frizlar 10] Roxy and Shahnee Louw 11] Jenni Button models

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BY THE WAY

Snap Judgement How to maintain your bush cred and shoot (photographs) like a pro.

GRANT ATKINSON, LEADING WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER, photographic safari guide and Internet photo-site guru, gives some tips on how not to end up with a hard drive full of bemused-looking buffalo and listless lions. Or, worse, with missing the shot that would have got you on the cover of a wildlife magazine.

Speed and preparedness are the essence, so expect the unexpected. Wild animals, even those used to the presence of vehicles, seldom hold an interesting pose for long. So, Grant says, leave the lens cap in the bag or at home.

Nobody has taken a great picture with a lens cap on yet – rather keep your gear covered with a towel to keep dust off. Leave the camera on.

It’s worth it because cameras use hardly any power in standby mode.

As far as camera settings are concerned, Grant chooses a fast shutter speed, and with the focus mode set to track moving subjects.

Faster shutter speeds counter camera shake and may result in sharper images. This may be especially useful when handholding your camera. Learn to control the position of your focus point. The camera’s autofocus system doesn’t always know what the most important part of your image is, but you should. The sport mode is a way to emulate these settings on cameras that have such preset modes.

If you’re new to shooting wildlife, or just want to hone your skills at shooting moving subjects, practise with the family dog chasing down a frisbee catch as your subject. This will help in getting used to shooting moving

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subjects and focusing correctly. At worst you’ll have a happy hound family album.

Be prepared with spare batteries and memory cards. Make sure your storage cards have enough space, and are fast enough to deal with continuous shooting that might take place with moving subjects. High-resolution cameras generate large picture files and they can quickly fill up memory cards, particularly if they shoot video as well. Cards that can read and write data quickly will help keep your camera buffer clear – so you don’t miss critical moments. Travel with enough cards or some other means of storage like an iPad, laptop or external drive.

Let the surroundings dictate the best focal length. In other words, don’t take all of your images at maximum zoom because sometimes pulling back to include the environment can be just as rewarding. In general, don’t be scared to experiment. With digital cameras, image capture is free, so don’t hold back.

After shooting in unusual circumstances, where you may have had to change your camera settings, make sure you remember to set them back to their usual state so that you don’t get caught on the wrong setting when a new subject shows up. There are just so many versions of the ‘one that got away’ that you can tell around the boma without losing your bush cred.

For more on wildlife photography, go to www.grantatkinson.com.

ILLUSTRATION: GALLO IMAGES/GETTYIMAGES

Words GRANT ATKINSON

MORNINGSIDE, SANDTON

ATHOLL, JOHANNESBURG

Stacking doors and seamless flow allow for entertainment on a fabulous scale. Winter or summer, it s right on the money. Engaging a free and open floor plan, this will make you smile from ear to ear. Two storeys hold 4 bedroom suites, pyjama lounge, media room, fantastic kitchen, garaging, maids and more. Set within a complex of 2 homes in a guarded CCTV boomed area, this is it! Walk to Redhill and Shul. Asking R8.9 million. Contact: Wayne Brownhill 078 023 5462 Tasha Rossen 082 561 1675 Office: 011 803 3380

A signature 6 bedroom en-suite contemporary home positioned within one of Atholls gated and guarded roads. Peace of mind for you and your family. Luxury and opulence blended together to create a breathtaking home. Glass, concrete and light infused together to form a masterpiece. Asking R12 million. Contact: Jayke Meneses 074 117 6273 Inez Meneses 079 911 7191 Office: 011 886 8070

BRYANSTON, SANDTON

HYDE PARK, JOHANNESBURG

Uninterrupted breathtaking views on the tip of the ridge in millionaire s row - Palatial double storey Country Villa positioned in exclusive guarded enclave. Spectacular views from all the rooms. This sumptuous residence offers extensive accommodation, gracious reception rooms with windowscapes onto superb indigenous treed garden with rim-flow heated pool and tennis court on ± 1½ acre. High quality kitchen onto breakfast room, 6 bedrooms en-suite, guest suite, fitted study, home movie theatre, gym and stunning sit-in wine cellar. Fountains, shutters, sash windows, generator, roof garden, luxurious housekeeper s cottage and butler s suite. All offers from R30 million will be submitted. Contact: Manuela Coelho 082 552 7119 Ester Fernandes Kruger 082 771 8389 Office: 011 463 8337

This magnificent habitat is for those who appreciate timeless design and quality - the epitome of style and sophistication. Set in a magnificent garden with romantic areas, ponds, fountains, olive grove, rose garden, pavilion and conservatory. Grand entrance hall, two formal lounges, dining room with gas fireplace, family room and study.

Gourmet kitchen, entertainers patio, salt chlorinated pool. Six beautiful bedrooms, main with private lounge and balcony. Separate income producing cottage, triple staff accommodation and four garages. Asking R28 million. Contact: Daniella Apteker 082 412 1273 Mary Fourie 082 779 1492 Office: 011 886 8070 Each office is independently owned and operated

BEVERLEY, SANDTON

BEVERLEY, SANDTON

This flawless cluster home boats a perfect fusion of flow and design. Secure and private position in this sought-after home complex it comprises elegant and spacious reception rooms, onto large well-appointed kitchen and separate scullery. Upstairs: pyjama lounge or study recess, 3 king-sized bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (2 en-suite).

Shady patio onto tranquil garden and heated pool. Asking R2.475 million. Contact: Cecile Leck 083 292 2576, Marilyn Keeley 083 415 8909 Office: 011 467 1031

Cluster. Savour the magnificence of nature. An executive retreat in a country-like setting. A masterpiece of design and an inspired creation of earthy textures of natural stone. Exceptional attention to detail, a modern trendy home which is designed to impress and style to inspire. Offering 3 reception rooms, 4 king size bedrooms all en-suite bathrooms, entertainers patio onto spacious landscaped garden and feature pool. 4 Garages, staff suite and guest parking. Asking R6.250 million. Contact: Cecile Leck 083 292 2576, Marilyn Keeley 083 415 8909 Office: 011 467 1031

BEVERLEY, SANDTON

LONEHILL, SANDTON

Cluster. Negotiating from mid R5 millions. Savour the magnificence of nature. Sip cocktails while watching the sun set and listening to the birdlife by the river. The view is spectacular and worth more than gold. This home is a masterpiece of design, an inspired creation of earthy textures of natural stone. An entertainer's paradise with separate enclosed braai area / lounge / dining area, overlooking wooden decking and private pool. A separate guest lodge with own pool. Open plan living areas, all bedrooms en-suite. Contact: Cecile Leck 083 292 2576, Marilyn Keeley 083 415 8909 Office: 011 467 1031

Cluster. A modern elegant masterpiece - light and spacious. Enter through the magnificent porte corchere to the lavish indoor/outdoor entertainment areas. The finishes are of the highest standard providing a unique lifestyle. Full self contained flatlet with own private entrance, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, lounge and kitchen. Main house has spacious reception areas, gorgeous built-in bar leads to enclosed patio, set in ±1303m² of landscaped garden and pool. All bedrooms are king size with en-suite bathrooms.

There are 2 studies and upstairs pyjama lounge. Beautiful chef's kitchen with breakfast area. Staff suite and 4 car garage. Asking R6.950 million. Contact: Cecile Leck 083 292 2576 Marilyn Keeley 083 415 8909 Office: 011 467 1031 Each office is independently owned and operated

DOUGLASDALE, SANDTON

DOUGLASDALE, SANDTON

Cluster. Negotiating from Mid R3 million s. Georgian grandeur. 4 Bedrooms, study.

Modern bathrooms. Beautiful gourmet kitchen, Separate dining room and formal lounge. Entertainers pub and family room lead on to large covered patio and pool.

Double garage. Not a cent spared. Contact: James Christelis 082 416 5343, Ryan Rodda 076 979 4330 Office: 011 465 1187

Cluster. Negotiating from Mid R3 million s. A spectacular modern masterpiece. 3 Large double bedrooms, 3 bathrooms en-suite. Cloakroom. Study. Magnificent master crafted kitchen onto dining area, lounge and separate family room. Enclosed covered patio on to refreshing pool and jacuzzi. Full staff or guest suite. Double garage. Lots of extras. Set in a beautiful and tranquil environment. Contact: James Christelis 082 416 5343, Ryan Rodda 076 979 4330 Office: 011 465 1187

FOURWAYS, SANDTON

FOURWAYS, SANDTON

House. Negotiating from upper R2 million s. Beautifully finished family home set in secure boomed area. 4 Bedrooms, 3 modern bathrooms, study, granite kitchen. Large reception areas leading to pool and manicured garden. Wonderful thatched entertainment area with pub and jacuzzi. Staff suite, double garage and more! Contact: James Christelis 082 416 5343, Ryan Rodda 076 979 4330 Office: 011 465 1187

House. Negotiating from R 2.599 million. An entertainers dream home. Perfectly positioned in sought after boomed area. 4 Bedrooms, study. 2 bathrooms, 3 reception areas. Granite kitchen. Entertainers pub in games room / entertainment area, covered patio and pool. Sauna. Full staff. Double garage and double carport. Contact: James Christelis 082 416 5343, Ryan Rodda 076 979 4330 Office: 011 465 1187

Each office is independently owned and operated

MEYERSDAL, GAUTENG

PLETTENBERG BAY, GARDEN ROUTE

Negotiating from R17 million. Timeless distinction - Built around indoor atrium and exotic garden with koi ponds, this Spanish masterpiece is on top of Meyersdal with breathtaking views. 5 Bedrooms, 4 en-suite bathrooms, cinema, bar, entertainment room, wine cellar, gym, 3 staff rooms, 6 garages and study with built-in fish tank. Asking R20 million. Contact Genevieve James 082 897 1548 Office: 011 867 3339

Central Plett stunner. Elegant and secure, this 5 bedroom home offers spectacular views of the entire bay. Built for entertaining your family and friends. Games room, pub and pool area, two fireplaces in family room and large dining room. Outside pub, braai area with pizza oven. Large granite and yellowwood kitchen with laundry. Separate staff quarters. Bedrooms and lounge offers under-floor heating. This home is centrally situated in one of the most sought after areas in Plett: “Old Plett”. Asking R13.7 million Contact: Hein Pretorius 083 701 3159 Office: 044 533 2529

GEORGE, GARDEN ROUTE

WATERKLOOF RIDGE, PRETORIA

A contemporary masterpiece, situated in a prime road, in one of George's leafy residential areas. Set back securely within high walls, this fine home boasts park-like gardens with tall trees and shrubs, an inviting pool off the vast, covered outdoor entertainment area and the most spectacular mountain views. Fabulous open-plan living areas, a superbly fitted and styled kitchen and 5 spacious bedrooms. Beautifully appointed master bedroom suite, complete with interleading study and private balconies. Additional features are the vast studio / games room which could work as a very comfortable "home office" setup as well as a housekeeper's bedroom suite.

Garaging for 3 vehicles. Asking R5.95 million. Contact: Office 044 873 2519.

Exceptionally gracious residence offering family living and entertainment lifestyle reflecting the individuality of design. This home has it all - luxurious master bedroom with fireplace, lounge, onto double en-suite bathroom. 4 Spacious bedrooms with guest suite.

Entertainment patio leads onto landscaped garden with waterfeatures and pool. Home theatre and wine cellar tucked in the basement. Meticulous construction and detail in the quality finishes of this home. Large open flowing reception areas includes lounge, dining, bar & TV lounge. Designer cherry wood kitchen, secluded study. Air-conditioning, 3 fireplaces, underfloor heating, automated sprinkler system and excellent security.

Asking R8.2 million. Contact: Juanita du Plessis 082 3223 407 Office: 012 460 9261 Each office is independently owned and operated

PAARL, WINELANDS

STELLENBOSCH, WINELANDS

Perched on the slopes of the Paarlberg Mountain, with astounding views of Paarl and surrounding mountains, this residence, in its setting, is beyond compare. With 5 luxuriously furnished and air conditioned guest rooms and a 6th suite as owners residence, this house offers ample accommodation. Dining room, patio and lounge overlooking the landscaped garden are friendly and light. ±9 901m² Estate with indigenous wild olive trees, palm trees and cycads features throughout the landscaped garden and the natural garden next to a mountain stream with waterfalls. The property is hidden from view by a poplar forest. Asking: R15million. Contact Bronwyn Boyd 0834201747 Office: 021 871 1011

Now negotiating from R18.9 million.This magnificent, custom built manor reveals everything in grand scale and is spread across ±6000m² of fully established, parklike garden with mature trees and elegant plantings. This home has been built to exceptional building standards with many imported finishes and great attention to detail. The exceptional home, with 5 bedrooms en suite, is situated inside the prestigious De Bosch gated estate, just a few minutes from central Stellenbosch.

Asking R25 million. Contact: George Cilliers 0824968296 Office: 021 809 2760

STELLENBOSCH, WINELANDS

PAARL, WINELANDS

An unpraralelled lifestyle estate with top security ideally situated between Stellenbosch and Somerset West. Standing tall amongst the vines is this approx 8ha small wine farm.

As a centrepiece there is the manor house with its exceptionally spacious rooms, soaring high ceilings, wooden floors and magnificent mountain views from every room.

With sweeping views over the vines through to Table Mountain, this is a unique opportunity to acquire a flourishing wine farm with space for the extended family, some income producing cottages and excellent vines. Asking R19.75 million excl vat.

Contact George Cilliers 082 496 8296 Office: 021 809 2760

Exclusive, secluded, historical estate of 95 hectares, situated on the slopes of Paarl Mountain, approximately 60km from Cape Town. Easy access to the estate via major public roads. Surrounded by a nature reserve and nestled in its own valley. Land utilization: Export table grapes, wine grapes, export fruit and olives. The manor house is a typical 18th century L-shaped structure, with office and garages attached (±1800 m²).

The second house on the property was built in 1797, declared a National Monument, has been sympathetically restored by the present owners. Sold as a going concern.

Asking R35 million. Contact: Irene Spinks 074 127 9280, Danie Hauptfleisch 083 627 2148 Office: 021 871 1011

Each office is independently owned and operated

UPPER CONSTANTIA, WESTERN CAPE

ZWAANSWYK, WESTERN CAPE

Offers invited from R6.9 million. Quietly tucked away in the Upper Constantia Valley, this sprawling, traditional home offers ample entertaining and recreational space on over an acre of lush gardens including a tennis court. Self-contained studios offer extra flexibility of living space close to communication routes and major schools. Asking R7.45 million. Contact: Steve Thomas 084 471 4722, Phyl McCance Price 082 593 1624, Ingrid Hoaten 082 490 6246 Office: 021 701 2446

Contemporary, French Provencal villa with spectacular views. Magnificent, double volume residence, set on an acre with sweeping views of the False Bay coastline and valley below. 3 Reception areas, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, dining room, study, playroom / gym, music studio, state-of-the art security and more. Asking R25 million.

Contact: Dawn Bloch 072 496 9458 Office: 021 701 2446

UPPER CONSTANTIA WESTERN CAPE

ZWAANSWYK, WESTERN CAPE

Colonial in style, this exceptional property certainly showcases a brilliant design flow, superior finishes and the latest in technology! The perfect home for relaxed living and year round entertaining for the entire family, including Gran in her totally self-contained and private cottage! There is a wonderful atmosphere of light and space with the outdoors easily accessed through double doors to covered patios and balconies from generous reception rooms, upstairs bedrooms and the gourmet kitchen. Socialize around the stunning bar while meat sizzles on the braai and laughter comes from the pool, jacuzzi and rolling lawns! Asking R15.95 million. Contact: Phyl McCance Price 082 593 1624, Ingrid Hoaten 082 490 6246, Steve Thomas 084 471 4722 Office: 021 701 2446

Masterpiece set in lush garden with tennis court. Tropical garden leading to feature pool. Wooden decking on two levels. 5 Bedrooms with 2 separate suites, each consisting of bedrooms, separate lounge leading to deck and en suite bathroom.

2 reception rooms, stunning kitchen, laundry, double garage, domestic quarters, excellent security. Asking: R12.95 million. Contact: Dawn Bloch 072 496 9458 Office: 021 701 2446

Each office is independently owned and operated

BISHOPSCOURT, WESTERN CAPE

STONEHURST MOUNTAIN ESTATE, WESTERN CAPE

State of the art architecture and interior design. Designed by acclaimed architect Stefan Antoni, and owner built to international standards, this spectacular home offers lavish entertainment areas, a spectacular Reto designed chef s kitchen, a magnificent master suite, garaging for 4 cars and unparalleled views of the mountain and city lights at night. The superb property, realistically priced, is a must see. Asking R12 million.

Contact: Barbara Manning 083 407 3656 Office: 021 673 1240

One of the finest homes on the estate with superb position and unsurpassed views!

This home has everything to offer the discerning buyer. Four en-suite bedrooms upstairs with security feature. Downstairs has a guest bedroom en-suite, beautiful kitchen, several reception areas, movie room, study, garaging for four cars and excellent finishes. Asking R17.95 million. Contact: Rouvaun McKirby 071 671 0821 Nancy O' Flaherty 082 600 6207 Office: 021 701 2446

SILVERTREE ESTATE, WESTERN CAPE

CONSTANTIA, WESTERN CAPE

Some of the attracting features of this lovely home are: the enclosed North-facing entertainment room with pub facilities, large garden and 3 garages! Quick occupation possible. View the rest to appreciate. Asking R5.895 million. Contact: Rouvaun McKirby 071 671 0821 Nancy O' Flaherty 082 600 6207 Office: 021 701 2446

This Old Lady is carefully restored and has become a pristine family home which will indulge the new owners with the best ambiance on a sought after location. Only 15 minutes from Cape Town and on the doorstep of famous botanical gardens. The formal and charming house is in excellent condition and has all modern comfort, spacious rooms. Established gardens with several terraces, water feature and large pool with pool house. entrance hall, reception rooms open plan kitchen 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, established gardens with pond 2 garages. Asking R6.9 million. Contact: Joanna Thomas 084 404 4120 Office: 021 701 2446

Each office is independently owned and operated

SHEFFIELD BEACH, KWAZULU NATAL

BALLITO, KWAZULU NATAL

A magnificent 4 en-suite bedroom home that includes 2 lounges on the ground floor and an exquisite bar area. This massive ±800m² home has 3 storeys, complete with lift servicing each floor. Also includes an entertainment room, built-in pool surrounded by stunning wooden deck with ocean views and direct access to the nearby Sheffield Beach. An entertainers dream on a ±1500m² plot of land complete with mature trees, a shallow stream and footbridge. Staff accommodation and double garage. Asking R13 million. Contact: Alec Reid 076 211 2128 Office: 032 946 0509

A designer 3 level masterpiece with 180° sea views, boasting 4 bedrooms all en-suite.

The house exudes pure luxury throughout and is situated only a stones throw from the beach - with direct beach access. 4 Lock-up garages, a spacious carpark, staff quarters, 2 lounges, a complete gym and entertainment area with stunning bar on the ground level, sparkling pool overlooking the ocean in a spacious green garden. The centre of the home exhibits a breathtaking chandelier. Extras include solar heated geysers, aircon throughout, designer kitchen with gas / electric stove, built-in deep fryers, a hydrotap and much more. Asking R27 million. Contact: Alec Reid 076 211 2128 Office: 032 946 0509

WILDERNESS, GARDEN ROUTE

WILDERNESS, GARDEN ROUTE

This contemporary beach-front villa designed by Dutch architect Jacob van Lingen is "state of the art" and located in absolutely one of the best positions in Wilderness on the Garden Route. Specially designed to maximize the ocean views from every room, in this newly-constructed home the inviting Indian ocean and coastline are frequently enhanced by fabulous sunrises and sunsets. With entire walls of glass surrounded by 400m² of hardwood decks, one is drawn to the outdoors to savour the unpolluted air and listen to the rushing waves upon the golden sands. Seven bedrooms with seven en-suite bathrooms and two inviting swimming pools (one heated). Asking R23.95 million Contact: Peter Bartrum 082 550 4808 Office 044 877 0767

A palatial home, offering luxurious accommodation, superior finishes and magnificent views. The sweeping staircase leads to five stylish and extremely comfortable, en suite bedrooms, each with a private balcony. Expansive entertainment areas lead out onto a verandah with rim flow pool, overlooking the lake and hills and beautifully manicured gardens. Ideal as an upmarket guest lodge, spa and wellness centre or as an exclusive gentleman's estate. Asking R11 million inclusive of furniture. Contact: Maria Coetsee 082 343 4030, Kelly Murdy 083 263 6327 Office: 044 877 0767

Each office is independently owned and operated

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