Limpopo — top things to do

Limpopo Province

The north­ern­most province of South Africa, Limpopo is regarded as the eco cap­ital of the coun­try and is where you go to exper­i­ence wild­life, incred­ible scenery and a lot less traffic con­ges­tion, unless the Kruger National Park in peak hol­i­day sea­son is your idea of a traffic jam.

Limpopo is also heav­ily shrouded in mys­tery and legend, an area heav­ily endowed with ruins, rel­ics, ancient forest and hot min­eral springs that invite reju­ven­a­tion. Other than a lot of farm­land and the odd mine, the Limpopo is wide open coun­try pre­dom­in­ated by game reserves that stretch end­lessly and allow one to exper­i­ence bush safaris of note. It might have a cap­ital city in the form of Polokwane, but the province's num­bers make up only 10% of the country's total pop­u­la­tion, des­pite being lar­ger than the US state of Pennsylvania and the fifth-largest province in South Africa. Continued

Get away from it all this 'xmas — retreats for the soul

@ Temenos

If I could, I would gladly escape the mad over-commercialisation of Christmas this year and opt for time-out in a retreat in the back of bey­ond. Whilst this isn't pos­sible — I have fam­ily com­mit­ments — I can provide, for those lucky souls amongst you who can choose from the won­der­ful options below to head for the hills, a list of retreats that provide a real space for introspection.

Whilst many accom­mod­a­tion options call them­selves retreats, the word has come to mean a space away from it all with little to encour­age indi­vidual explor­a­tion and med­it­a­tion. A retreat in this art­icle means a with­draw­ing, a retire­ment or a period of retire­ment for reli­gious exer­cise or med­it­a­tion. Any of the fol­low­ing places will allow you  'time out' and some will even provide guided retreats. Whilst spir­itual, none are religion-specific, and every­one is wel­come ... Continued

Local is lekker — 5 great and relatively unknown destinations at home

More and more South Africans are 'stay­ing home' for the hol­i­days. They're ven­tur­ing over­seas far less than pre­vi­ously for vari­ous reas­ons — they're feel­ing the pinch of the Rand, they're cut­ting back on car­bon emis­sions, or they're dis­cov­er­ing that actu­ally home has some gor­geous places to which to escape, without the over­whelm­ing stress of a long haul flight.

Come December though, one wants to avoid the bun­fight syn­drome of sea­side resorts that become some­what inund­ated. With a little ima­gin­a­tion there are a myriad other places one can be for Christmas, and even if the idea of a coastal hol­i­day is top of the list, there are spaces along the coast that remain low key and a pleas­ure (read on) ... Continued

Give the gift of a Heartwood Tree ... or get one for yourself

Heartwood Trees

OK, so here we are a few short weeks to Christmas Day and I haven’t done one stitch of Christmas shop­ping.  Not only have I not done any Christmas shop­ping but I also don’t have the faintest idea of what to get my fam­ily mem­bers.  If any­one else is in my boat then read on because you might be inter­ested in Heartwood Tree Gifting.  I think it’s a genius idea and as Alexander Smith said, ‘Trees are your best antiques.’

Heartwood was foun­ded in 2009 by Jenni Rowe and was cre­ated with the idea that small things do count and that gifts should not be instantly for­get­table.  A gift can be a sus­tain­able sym­bol and what bet­ter gift than a tree; it’s the gift that keeps on giv­ing!  There are so many won­der­ful trees: the wise Oak, the peace giv­ing Olive tree and the mourn­ful Weeping Willow. Continued

Visit a South African National Park for free this week

Kruger National Park

From Monday to Friday this week (13 to 17 September 2010), all South Africans can spend a day at one of South Africa's glor­i­ous national parks without pay­ing an entry fee — thanks to the "Know Your National Parks" campaign.

South African National Parks board (SANParks) will allow all South Africans with valid ID doc­u­ments to enter any park man­aged by it, com­pletely free of charge (three parks are excluded from this free­bie deal, they are Boulders in the Table Mountain National Park, Tankwa Karoo and Namaqua national park and includes entrance fees Continued

Creative ways to have fun in the snow

Build a snow man

Heavy snow­falls over parts of South Africa overnight have given many fam­il­ies the chance to enjoy fun in the white stuff. Here are some simple but cre­at­ive ways to enjoy snow that you may not have thought of before:

First things first!
Wrap every­one up warmly — I know it sounds obvi­ous, but chil­dren are not pen­guins and aren’t auto­mat­ic­ally enthu­si­astic about ven­tur­ing out into freez­ing con­di­tions! To per­suade them to have fun in the cold out­side they will need to feel very warm and toasty on the inside! Continued

In South Africa but got to do it in 9 days? Here are the 'must see' spots

Cape Town Aerial

You've hit the shores of our rugged, gor­geous, riddled with con­tra­dic­tions, big on diversity land, and have but 9 days in which to say you've done it all? A tall order at the best of times, but not impossible. South Africa is huge by anyone's stand­ards, with unfor­get­table scenery, and memory-making places to visit, whether it's moun­tains, beaches, deserts or cit­ies you're after.

You will already have heard of the 'big­gies', the 'must do's' when on our soil. And they've been selec­ted because they truly are incred­ible places to visit and sights to see. For those of you who haven't been here EVER, we've tried to squash as many of these into the 9 days as pos­sible (it isn't easy). Whilst you could safely spend a life­time on our shores, and not have to visit the same place twice, these guidelines on what to see when will safely give you a taste of South Africa, a cam­era full of pic­tures, and the urge to return ... Continued

It's a 'darling' of a town, is Darling

Darling ...

There is much to attract one to Darling. It's a small town for one, it's close to Cape Town (not even an hour's drive), has its own wine route, and is the closest of the West Coast wine dis­tricts to Cape Town; dur­ing the flower sea­son it hosts the Darling Wildflower Show whilst the Tienie Versfeld Reserve on its peri­met­ers is a car­pet of blooms, and Evita Bezuidenhout (Tannie Evita to you, darling) has ensconced her­self here at the station.

It helped that we chose to visit Darling when the rest of Cape Town had its eyes glued to the Argus, long before the flower sea­son. There was barely any­one in town. Despite this, we had the time of our lives, dis­covered a local gem for Sunday lunch, and got to chat to the loc­als ... Continued

A rose by any other name – how Rosendal steals the show in the Free State

Rosendal Country Retreat

Rosendal has man­aged to get onto the map. I'm not sure how, because in search­ing for it you begin to won­der how the aver­age per­son gets there at all, nev­er­mind how the former farm­ing com­munity man­aged to find its way into the social whirl of a 'hap­pen­ing' little town. Nonetheless, there it is. In the middle of the Free State (see, I told you it was in the middle of nowhere).

Getting there from Clarens takes almost two hours because, instead of being able to get there dir­ectly as a crow would fly, roads take you in a rather cir­cuit­ous route via Ficksburg; you can't get there eas­ily from Bethlehem; and the N1 ven­tures abso­lutely nowhere near it ... Continued

The Heath

We stumbled upon The Heath, the Garden Route's bohemian farm store, whilst on our way to Stilbaai from St Francis Bay. Now many of you may know about this fant­astic find, but I was imme­di­ately entranced by the stop and couldn't under­stand why no-one had bothered to inform me of what def­in­itely qual­i­fies as my 'best shop­ping exper­i­ence of the year' before!

It turns out that mostly every­one who travels this route knows about it. In fact my sis­ter has men­tioned it to me numer­ous times but usu­ally pre­faced with the words 'we stopped at this shop' whilst fore­go­ing the obvi­ously vital inclu­sion of its name – my sis­ter isn't that strong on names – hence my amazement at hav­ing missed out ... Continued

Hogsback's labyrinth — travelling within whilst staying in the same place

I was over­awed by the labyrinth set in the gar­dens at The Edge in Hogsback in the Eastern Cape. I've sub­sequently read someone else's unim­pressed com­ments and am struck anew by how two people, look­ing at exactly the same object, can have two such oppos­ing exper­i­ences, des­pite the obvi­ous beauty of a place.

The labyrinth is set vir­tu­ally on the edge of a cliff with the most spec­tac­u­lar views of the val­ley below, the Amatola Mountains, and an expanse of sky that together have a for­mid­able visual impact. Even if you know noth­ing about labyrinths, and do not intend trav­el­ling its path­ways, its set­ting alone resounds with an intan­gible qual­ity that is imme­di­ately calm­ing, and yet exhil­ar­at­ing. It cel­eb­rates life, the uni­verse and everything – to quote Douglas Adams ... Continued

Flower Power — the Cape Floral Kingdom

Cape Floral Kingdom

Here in South Africa, we’re really quite proud of all the cool stuff our coun­try has to offer. You’ve heard us wax lyr­ical about our moun­tains, our game reserves, our wild­life, our beaches, and just gush in gen­eral about South Africa’s nat­ural beauty (not to men­tion its world-class hotels, res­taur­ants, bars, nightlife…).

So small won­der that here’s yet another part of the coun­try we want to tell you about: The Cape Floral Kingdom.

Of the six floral king­doms in the world, ours might be the smal­lest, but, as the old adage goes, it’s not the size that mat­ters. You see ... it’s also the only floral king­dom occur­ring entirely within one coun­try. Continued

Down the garden path … Cape Town Company Gardens

In the midst of Cape Town’s bust­ling CBD, abut­ting the Houses of Parliament and Tuynhuys (the President’s Cape Town res­id­ence), hides an oasis of green­ery, the roots of which extend across the cen­tur­ies to tap into our country’s his­tory – though most loc­als simply think of the Company Gardens as a cool spot for an inner-city picnic.

Named for the Dutch East India Company, the gar­dens were estab­lished by Jan van Rieebeck in the 1650's as a fresh pro­duce garden for the pur­pose of re-victualling ships and provid­ing Cape Town’s col­on­ists with veg­gies. They have been lur­ing vis­it­ors through their gates since their cur­rent incarn­a­tion as a botan­ical garden and pub­lic park in 1848. A wander around the Gardens’ lim­its will bring you into con­tact with sprawl­ing lawns, foun­tains, fish ponds, a Japanese rose garden, an avi­ary, a sun dial and the country’s old­est cul­tiv­ated pear tree, among other botan­ic­ally and his­tor­ic­ally import­ant plant-life. Continued

Jozi Attractions

Apartheid Museum

A massive city and boast­ing many ‘firsts’, Johannesburg boasts an impress­ive num­ber of awe­some attrac­tions to suit both young and old. First off, the Apartheid Museum is oddly loc­ated next to the fun-park thrills of Gold Reef City. This is an essen­tial South African exper­i­ence which tells the apartheid story with a con­front­ing sens­ory verve through large, visu­ally stun­ning dis­plays and excel­lent audio visual exhib­its. For a trip down memory lane or to exper­i­ence some of South Africa’s sad his­tory, visit the Apartheid Museum (also see http://www.apartheidmuseum.org/).
 
The Hector Pieterson Memorial is another must visit. Through the use of old pho­to­graphs and video, this museum tells the chilling story of the 1976 stu­dent upris­ings against the forced use of Afrikaans in South African schools. The exhibit is stark, haunt­ing and sure to leave you with chills down your spine. Continued