10 Great Things To Do When Next in Knysna

The Town of Knysna

When was the last time you were in Knysna? This ever pop­u­lar Garden Route town has plenty to offer. The middle of the year is when thou­sands of people des­cend on this town for the Knsyna Oyster Festival and those who've been train­ing take part in either the Knysna Forest Marathon and Knysna Cycle Tour.

But when the buzz of the Oyster Festival calms down and the tour­ists leave this town doesn't go to sleep ... it does the oppos­ite of that. Reason being because there is so much to do in and around the town of Knysna. There are plenty of fest­ivals that hap­pen each year, the Pink Loerie Mardi Gras is another favourite.

Not only is the town filled with fest­ivals but your will find a host of Things to Do in Knysna. I've taken a slice out of all the excit­ing places to visit and things to see and have round up 10 great things to do when you're next in town ... Continued

The Best of Local Fayre on Saturdays at the Jozi Food Market

Jozi Food Market

If you live in the Greenside area of Johannesburg and are look­ing for some­where a bit more novel than the local super­mar­ket for your weekly gro­cer­ies why not give the Jozi Food Market a try?  Open every Saturday from 08h30 to 13h30 and con­veni­ently loc­ated at the Pirates Sports Club you can expect to be greeted by artis­ans and stall hold­ers happy to share their love and know­ledge of food.

The mar­ket offers a wide selec­tion of food; take your pick from the 50 deli­cious recipes that Soup ‘n Stuff has per­fec­ted (who doesn’t love soup on a chilly day) while Sue’s Karoo Lemon Cordial (and ginger beer) is just the tonic on a sum­mers day.  Also avail­able is tasty muesli from All About Muesli, yummy, dec­ad­ent pies from The Granary Pies and don’t for­get La Bonne Cuisine’s chicken liver pate. Continued

Where to Lunch in De Rust, and Why it's Worth a Visit

Lunch in De Rust

We don't mean to stop in De Rust. We're on the N12 that heads off the N1 close to the Karoo National Park en route to Ladismith, our inten­ded des­tin­a­tion, and have just come through the incred­ible Meiringspoort, when De Rust appears out of nowhere.

The main road through town is littered with col­our­ful res­taur­ants, cof­fee shops and the odd boutique. The place is hot and hum­ming. And a big board informs us that De Rust has won 'dorp van die jaar' and claims to be the best town in the Karoo.

Besides, we're hot and hungry. And with all the jolly jost­ling for atten­tion that each of the estab­lish­ments makes in a bid to get you to stop at their res­taur­ant (they're rather col­our­ful), the town deserves exploration.

The towns we've passed through, the heat of the Karoo and the incred­ible tower­ing sand­stone cliffs of Meiringspoort have all reminded me of author Ettienne van Heerden's The Long Silence of Mario Salviati (if there's one book that to me epi­tom­ises the Karoo, then it's this one, although the ori­ginal, is of course, Die Swye van Mario Salviati). Continued

Graaff Reinet's Obesa Nursery – Walk the Cacti Labyrinth

Obesa Cacti Nursery

You either get it, or you don't. With the Obesa Cactus Nursery. Although describ­ing it as a 'nurs­ery' hardly does the exper­i­ence justice. For a visit here, if you allow it, is far more of an exper­i­ence than it is a simple trip to the nurs­ery to pick up a cac­tus or two for your win­dow sill.

First of all the 'nurs­ery' takes up the bet­ter part of a block. For those of you who want to find it, hunt down the street dom­in­ated by a myriad psy­che­del­ic­ally painted houses. They're a series of guest houses that go by the same name as the nurs­ery (run by Johan's ex-wife, who remains a fan des­pite that). The nurs­ery is dir­ectly across the road, and all over the pave­ment, and, if you look around you, on just about every avail­able piece of ground.

That this is the work of a man with a pas­sion is obvi­ous. Having lived with a garden­ing nut who has trans­formed the bet­ter part of our city garden into a wild veget­able man­dala, I think I can handle it. Continued

5 great things to do when in Graaff-Reinet

Reinet House

Stop your car on the out­skirts of town on the Camdeboo Mountain Drive and below you will lie the cir­cu­lar shape of Graaff-Reinet, held within a gen­er­ous bend of the Sundays River closest to you, and the moun­tains of the Sneeuberg in the back­ground. It's a glor­i­ous set­ting, to say the least.

Depending upon the time of year that you go, it will either be mer­ci­lessly hot (at least 40 degrees in the shade if the last couple of sum­mers are any­thing to go by) or really cold (dur­ing winter).

Neither of which should act as a deterrent, for the town is not only beau­ti­ful, it is also pretty large as far as Karoo towns go, full of a rich his­tory (it's the fourth old­est town in the coun­try after Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Swellendam) and it has count­less places to visit and things to do. Continued

The Cape Leopard Trust — small cats with big problems

Dr Quinton Martins, the man behind The Cape Leopard Trust, has seen only seven ad hoc sight­ings of wild leo­pards in the Cederberg where his research takes place in eight years. Even with col­lars, he sees but a few each year. The Cape Leopard is a vul­ner­able, isol­ated pop­u­la­tion that occurs at low dens­ity in the moun­tains of the Northern, Eastern and Western Cape. Due to the influ­ence of European set­tlers over the past 350 years, it has already been made extinct in many areas where it used to roam. As the trust head­lines in its adverts to raise aware­ness: Leopards of the Cape are small cats with BIG prob­lems ... Continued

I did it Five Bays!

Five Bay Trail

It is just as well that when first read­ing the email invit­ing us to join one of the Cape West Coast Biosphere Trails that the rather obvi­ous fact that I was going to have to actu­ally walk the 28 km didn't register. Or I prob­ably would have chickened out and sent my other half without me.

My eye, instead, homes into the word 'gentle' (used to describe the hik­ing trail) and the fact that we will not have to carry heavy packs, will have our food laid on for us, and be put up in a B&B in Paternoster. I need no fur­ther persuasion.

The Five Bay Trail is described as a walk­ing trail. And for those who are seasoned hikers, it is pos­sibly a walk in the park, although you'll more than get your exer­cise in. For those of you, like me, who walk occa­sion­ally and do not count yourselves as fit, you will man­age, only just... Continued

The Karkloof Canopy Tour – An adrenaline fuelled rush through the tree tops

Karkloof Canopy Tour

The Karkloof Canopy Tour is prob­ably the most well-known out­door activ­ity in the Natal Midlands, attract­ing people from all walks of life in search of the adven­ture of a life­time. Situated amidst the beauty and green­ery of the majestic Karkloof Valley, the tour involves tra­vers­ing from one wooden plat­form to another along a pair of steel cables (with a two ton break­ing strain) sus­pen­ded high above the forest floor.

Those in the industry refer to this tra­vers­ing as ‘zip lin­ing’ because this is exactly what takes place as par­ti­cipants ‘zip’ along the cables at speeds of up to 80km/h. The Karkloof Canopy Tour has its roots in the balmy rain­forests of Costa Rica where adven­tur­ous bio­lo­gists, eager to record the diversity of animal life found at the can­opy level of the forests, devised a sys­tem of cables and plat­forms that enabled them to explore this pre­vi­ously inac­cess­ible eco­sys­tem. Continued

Being a tourist in your own town — 10 unusual things to do in Cape Town

The Cape in a side car

There are a lot of things I've not done in Cape Town that the aver­age tour­ist has. Exploring Cape Town through the eyes of a tour­ist can be as good as going on hol­i­day else­where, a lot cheaper, and will earn you greenie points for sav­ing on car­bon emis­sions and for con­trib­ut­ing to the local economy.

So this year over the Festive Season, why not try to explore the city as a tour­ist. Here is my choice list of things we'd like to do – not all of them fall in the Top 10 Things to do in Cape Town, but then they've also got to appeal to those who have lived here a while ... Continued

Rawdon’s Restaurant – Good old fashioned service and hospitality in the Midlands

Rawdons Estate

Situated in the heart of the Midlands Meander and only a five minute drive from the N3 high­way is Rawdon’s Estate, prob­ably one of the old­est hos­pit­al­ity estab­lish­ments on the Midlands. The first thing that struck me about Rawdon’s was its unique, old world charm.

Closely resem­bling an English coun­try estate of a bygone era the estab­lish­ment is fur­nished with a vari­ety of prize antiques that cre­ate an atmo­sphere of class and soph­ist­ic­a­tion. Walking through its numer­ous hall­ways and invest­ig­at­ing its many nooks and cran­nies was an abso­lute delight and I espe­cially enjoyed the count­less, anim­ated framed sketches that adorned the walls. Continued

The Red Windmill – another great stop just outside Napier

The Red Windmill

Eat, play, live at the nurs­ery | garden shop | res­taur­ant | play area | vin­tage shop ...

Just out­side the town of Napier, en route to Bredasdorp, sits a beau­ti­ful old Cape Dutch farm house, just off the road, with a bright red roof and white gables and walls. To the side of it stands a red wind­mill, admit­tedly minus its blades, but that's a story for later.

The Red Windmill isn't the farm­stall it first appears to be. Instead its some­thing of a col­lec­tion or col­lab­or­a­tion of four inde­pend­ent shops under the umbrella of Red Windmill. I bump into Dee Robinson. She's drink­ing cof­fee on the stoep with Erica (of Dave's Country Kitchen) and Lesley (of Cool Beans sweets shop). Everyone's laugh­ing and gen­er­ally hav­ing a rather fest­ive time. If this is what col­lab­or­a­tion looks like, count me in.

It's late in the after­noon on a Sunday and the lunch rush is over. Dee explains how she just had to have the house when it came up for hire last year. “I've had my eye on this build­ing since we arrived in Napier from Cape Town,” she smiles. “I didn't know what we were going to do with it, but I knew some­thing would emerge.” Continued

City Bowl Market on Hope – one-stop market for all your food needs

City Bowl Market

Is it just me, or has the Neighbourgoods Market at the Old Biscuit Mill in Cape Town become ridicu­lously busy, over priced and just plain unpleas­ant if you hap­pen to arrive at any time past 9am, and who doesn't?

I'm the last one to knock the Neighbourgoods. They're a first-rate mar­ket — they've out­las­ted the very best, they've set the bench­mark as far as excel­lent food mar­kets go, and could rival any sim­ilar European mar­ket. But enough already. It's really time for another mar­ket in the city bowl...

Enter stage left – the City Bowl Market — situ­ated on the rather obscure Hope Street in Gardens, which, not being a city bowl dweller myself, I man­aged to cap­ably miss for twenty minutes before finally find­ing it (but I did get to drive around Gardens, which was lovely). Continued

CocoáFair – the Biscuit Mill acquires a taste for chocolate

CocoáFair

There is a little more to CocoáFair than simply chocol­ate. For many of us just the prom­ise of loc­ally made, artisan, organic chocol­ate is enough of an invit­a­tion to have us reach­ing for a taste...and believe me, hav­ing sampled, it is a mouth-watering experience.

But Thor soon explains, as I query the name, that yes, CocoáFair is def­in­itely about the fair­ness involved in the way the cocoa is traded, but the emphasis is also very much on the 'affair' with cocoa – not only the love of it, but the rela­tion­ship of cocoa with the people who grow it, and the people who turn it into chocolate.

And an affair there most def­in­itely is. On dis­play on shelves to my right and left are bars of organic chocol­ate, pralines, truffles, a bar­rel filled with incred­ibly reas­on­ably priced raw cacoa, organic sugar, and sliv­ers of chocol­ate — bagged, and tied up with a rib­bon. Continued

Kamers vol Geskenke — where gifts are flying off the shelves

Kamers vol Geskenke

If there is one event you attend for all your Christmas gift shop­ping, then make it Kamers vol Geskenke at Lourensford wine estate in Somerset West, hap­pen­ing now: until 29 October, 9am to 6pm daily.

I'm just back from three hours of soak­ing up the ambi­ance of a mar­ket that gives new mean­ing to the word 'craft'. The recent term for this type of craft is 'high-end craft' (there's that word again, but obvi­ously it is irre­place­able). So, don't expect to see hand-knitted jer­seys and wooden toys as you might at your aver­age local craft market.

'High-end craft' describes ori­gin­ally designed, time­less 'craft' that could eas­ily, and does, grace the shelves of local boutiques as they open all over the coun­try to cater for this bur­geon­ing com­munity of artists who com­bine con­tem­por­ary cre­ativ­ity with inspired tal­ent to arrive at a level of flair and ingenu­ity that inspires all who pass through the rooms of this event ... Continued

Spring Holiday Time – Great 'hangout' (kid-friendly) spots in and around Cape Town

Spring Holiday Time

Spring is sprung, sum­mer is on the way, and school is out – the great out­doors is a feast of places and spaces await­ing explor­a­tion, and Cape Town is one of the most beau­ti­ful cit­ies in which to do great things.

We've selec­ted a series of great spots in which to have a won­der­ful time, most of them child-friendly, but not neces­sar­ily all — some­times grown-ups just want to have fun on their own...

Perfect pic­nic spots

Kirstenbosch – argu­ably the most pop­u­lar week­end pic­nic haunt in the city, you're prob­ably bet­ter seek­ing out an altern­at­ive on a hot summer's week­end day if you want to beat the crowds, but still the most gor­geous spot ima­gin­able. Spill out on lawns, benches, in the magical Dell or in the higher reaches of the gardens.

Location: Rhodes Drive, Newlands Continued