Elim — a town with twelve fountains and seventy palm trees

Elim, Cape Overberg

They've only just tarred the gravel road that takes one from Bredasdorp to Elim. So it is only in the last three years that the little mis­sion town has become more access­ible for vis­it­ors to the Cape Overberg. Now an ordin­ary sedan like ours can make it to the vil­lage without a bat­ter­ing, and those with hired vehicles can even arrive unscathed in town (hired cars are not sup­posed to travel on dirt roads).

Which means someone like Emile is slowly exper­i­en­cing what in Elim's terms can only be described as a busi­ness boom. Emile is the local tour guide. You don't have to worry about find­ing Emile. Simply park at the mis­sion church — you can't miss it upon arrival in the quaint little vil­lage — and wait for him to find you. Continued

Platbos – where the trees whisper messages of solace

Platbos is an incred­ible, ancient indi­gen­ous forest that just about no-one knows about. It lies off the coast of Gansbaai, on the same dirt road that takes one past Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, and a won­der­ful retreat called Bodhi Khaya (I know because I've been there).

Melissa had already tele­phoned us as we approach Platbos – they are in a bit of a rush to be some­where and our time with them will be lim­ited. Putting foot as much as one can on a dirt road in a not-offroad vehicle, we turn in at the little wooden sign, care­ful to take the left turn at the fork and not end up in the drive­way of their neigh­bour (obvi­ously a reg­u­lar enough occur­rence for there to be a note in the dir­ec­tions). Continued

Slow food comes to Stanford

Graze

Stanford already has its requis­ite vil­lage mar­ket on the green, held on the last Friday even­ing of the month. During sum­mer, I believe, it's a great place to be. The town is no new­comer to good, local food either and both Marianas and Madré's Kitchen are well sup­por­ted by loc­als and Capetonians, who if the influx of 4x4s is any­thing to go by, make no bones about using Stanford as their reg­u­lar week­end and hol­i­day base.

It's a beau­ti­ful town, is Stanford. It's got everything you could pos­sibly hope for in an Overberg vil­lage – gor­geous his­tor­ical and restored build­ings that the local her­it­age com­mit­tee have not only indi­vidu­ally numbered, but have also included in an Histor­ical Stanford on foot, which you can pick up at the local tour­ism info (just across the road from the Stanford Trading Store). Continued

I ♥ Pearly Beach Because ...

I ♥ Pearly Beach

Hi, I’m Steve, aka Mr Noah from The Ark B&B in beau­ti­ful Pearly Beach on the Cape Whale Coast.

PEARLY BEACH IS BEST KNOWN as the place for relax­ing and the stun­ning, seem­ingly end­less pearly white sandy beaches.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN on the beach with the moun­tains as a back­drop or, if you are really lucky, with a whale or two in the background!

WHEN THE WEATHER'S GOOD, I LIKE TO wander along the beach with my dogs and explore the rock pools at low tide.

WHEN THE WEATHER'S BAD, I LIKE TO bat­ten down the hatches and watch the stormy seas from the whale deck and catch up with my read­ing. Continued

Glorious Grabouw Photographs

We were invited out to spend this past week­end in Grabouw and although I’ve heard a lot about it (my father grew up here), it has been a long time since I spent any amount of time in the Cape Overberg town and its sur­rounds.  Our accom­mod­a­tion was about 35kms on the other side of Grabouw so after ambling around for a bit we headed out into the coun­try.  The scenery is in short, spec­tac­u­lar.  With autumn here the leaves are sport­ing burn­ished reds and oranges which look beau­ti­ful against sunny back­drops and blue skies.  The orch­ards of apple trees are laden with fruit and pack­ing palettes stand ready to be filled with the deli­cious fruit and expor­ted to for­eign shores!  Grabouw is a won­der­ful part of the world to visit – why not book a week­end away? Continued

De Hoop — three hours up the coast, friend to whales ...

De Hoop Reserve

De Hoop — three hours up the coast, friend to whales, well worth the trek: My geo­graphy is such that I thought De Hoop was just out­side Swellendam. It is. But I def­in­itely had it con­fused with the Bontebok Nature Reserve, so was more than happy to be rudely awakened to the beauty of De Hoop, because gor­geous it is (there are also plenty of bon­te­bok here too, for those who appre­ci­ate this petite, white rear-ended antelope).

When you turn off the R319 onto the gravel road that enters the De Hoop reserve, you leave behind you swathes of green wheat and fields of bright yel­low can­ola. The stark con­trast between this con­spicu­ous agri­cul­ture, and the almost imme­di­ate evid­ence of fyn­bos, all in flower, is dra­matic. It also makes obvi­ous how con­trived these seem­ingly benign farms are and how we have mar­gin­al­ised the Cape Floristic fyn­bos that is so obvi­ously threatened (it's the smal­lest but the richest veget­a­tion type in diversity). Continued

The Gravity Adventure Festival — a weekend of adventure

Kogelberg Reserve

This past week­end I left work and headed straight to a friends house to pick her up and off we headed to Betty’s Bay for a week­end of adven­ture. Arriving in the dark we even­tu­ally found the turn off to the drive­way and in we went to our sup­posedly 'haunted house'. Although we never encountered said ghost (fondly named Emily) she was fre­quently the topic of the weekend’s dis­cus­sions and often took the blame for miss­ing things or eaten food!

Besides going for a break from the city we had a few friends who were tak­ing part in vari­ous aspects of the Gravity Adventure Festival, an annual fest­ival is held in the sur­round­ing area of the Kogelberg Biosphere Nature Reserve and what a beau­ti­ful set­ting this is. This was only a few kilo­metres down the road from our accom­mod­a­tion. Continued

Barge Cruise on the River at Mofam Farm

Mofam Farm

During my stay at the Old Mac Daddy we were treated to a river barge cruise at nearby Mofam Farm, which is both accom­mod­a­tion and a ski school. The pho­to­graphs speak for them­selves as the water was crys­tal clear and reflec­ted the sur­round­ings with mirror-like quality.

On board with us were the res­id­ent hounds of Mofam Dolce and Gabana two Labradors who thor­oughly enjoy this water adven­ture. We were also treated to some wine and snacks, the snacks were devoured as there was a large selec­tion of cheese, olives and bis­cuits. A firm favour­ite must have been the brie and fig pre­serve com­bin­a­tion as this was quickly reduced to noth­ing. Continued

Betty’s Bay — a perfect get away

Bettys Bay

The quaint sea­side vil­lage of Betty’s Bay is the per­fect get away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Located between Kleinmond and Pringle Bay, Betty’s Bay is only an hour’s drive from Cape Town along the pic­tur­esque Clarence Drive Route (R44). Squeezed between the Kogelberg Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean and sur­roun­ded by fresh water lakes and the Palmiet River, this coastal town has a lot to offer.

Here are a few of the must see attrac­tions ... Continued

Vanilla Café – slow life in Greyton continues with breakfast, lunches and high teas

Vanilla Café

Putting a bouncy castle in your back garden is an almost full proof guar­an­tee of cli­entèle. Or at least, those of a cer­tain age group. If you're in the pres­ence of a four-year old, there is vir­tu­ally no stronger mag­net. 'Mom, it's a jumpy castle!' emit­ted together with a gasp of excite­ment and much hand tug­ging, and before long, we're sit­ting in the sun dappled — dis­turbed inter­mit­tently by rain – garden amidst much tree climb­ing and blown up castle jump­ing – the things that please small people!

But it wasn't all that bad. I mean, for us adults. On the con­trary, Vanilla Café was some­thing of a find, con­sid­er­ing it was right next door to our accom­mod­a­tion and one of the few child-friendly res­taur­ants in Greyton ... Continued

Visiting Genadendal

Genadendal

Tourist bro­chures speak about Genadendal as a 'must do' when in Greyton. The quaint little his­tor­ical vil­lage just six kilo­metres out­side of Greyton is described as the old­est Moravian mis­sion vil­lage on the con­tin­ent, never mind South Africa, and as a vil­lage 'frozen in the past' with streets of gor­geously neat little thatched white-walled cottages.

This descrip­tion is partly true — the care­fully main­tained his­tory and build­ings are beau­ti­ful. Some of them date back as far as 1738 and a visit here is def­in­itely worth it to soak up the his­tory of this mis­sion­ary town. But what descrip­tions don't include is that to reach the care­fully main­tained his­tor­ical build­ings, you have to drive through the abject poverty that is Genadendal's outly­ing com­munity. Continued

Von Geusau — the chocolates, the man, the story ...

Von Geasau Chocolates

I used to be a choco­holic. There, I've said it. What a relief. Now that it's out of the way, I think that I should also share that I was over my addic­tion. Totally. Could walk past a bar of chocol­ate and not turn a hair. You could crack a bar in my pres­ence and I would con­tinue a con­ver­sa­tion without even a glot­tal stop. Until this weekend.

Was it my fault that Blossom Cottage, the gor­geous little restored self-catering accom­mod­a­tion in Greyton on Ds Botha Street, was dir­ectly across the road from Von Geusau's out­let? I am not entirely sure if it was fate or provid­ence. But the mere sight of Von Geusau's delect­ably hand wrapped chocol­ates caught me. Reeling. Intent on a taste if it was the last thing that I did ... Continued

Never quite so happy as when in Greyton

Greyton

There are a couple of things you don't real­ise at first about Greyton by view­ing it on a map. One is that the quaint town is at the end of a road, it is not a thor­ough­fare (so no trundling trucks at mid­night), and the other is that it is undeni­ably one of the most beau­ti­ful towns in the Western Cape. I say this unreservedly.

Greyton is a quaint little English-style vil­lage just bey­ond the mis­sion town of Genadendal, on the east side of the Theewaterskloof dam, and on the other side of the Riviersonderend moun­tain range from McGregor. Actually, there is a hike you can do through the beau­ti­ful range of moun­tains from one vil­lage to the other, but con­sid­er­ing that on this occa­sion the moun­tain peaks were tipped with snow, we decided to give it a miss (to be hon­est, hik­ing across great swathes of moun­tain has never been my strong point and, con­sid­er­ing that the Boesmanskloof Trail is often done as a there-and-back hike, I was smil­ing pret­tily!). Continued

Barrydale – much to explore

Barrydale

Arriving in Barrydale is like a breath of fresh air. Nothing quite pre­pares you for its uniquely arty bent or pret­ti­ness, other than the fact that people are talk­ing about it. And one soon under­stands why. Barrydale is quirky, home to at least two cob houses, dry shale walls, loads of res­taur­ants, the infam­ous Karoo hotel, a labyrinth, hot springs, a com­munity of both English and Afrikaans speak­ing artists, a fair num­ber of French, German, Spanish and Italian res­id­ents, vine­yards, a group of hand weavers, and views to die for.

The town lies in the lush Tradouw val­ley, at the north­ern end of the Tradouws Pass sur­roun­ded by the Langeberg and Swartberg Mountains, roughly an hour from Montagu. Drive a little way out of town and orch­ards filled with apple, pear, orange, apricot, fig and peach trees dom­in­ate the farm­lands, the odd derel­ict barn or farm build­ing next to a wind­mill a sign that you're in the Karoo and that aver­age sum­mer heat reaches up to Continued

The Fox in Napier

Last Saturday night we had din­ner at The Fox in Napier and it was so good that I think it deserves a blog post all of its own!

Located at 10 Sarel Cilliers Street in Napier, The Fox is pretty much one of the first (if not the first) build­ing you see as you enter the town.  Originally an 1860’s house, own­ers Mike and Louise con­ver­ted the build­ing into what it is today; The Fox.  One enters the res­taur­ant through the small but pretty garden with a few tables and chairs out­side for al fresco din­ing.  Inside the res­taur­ant has approx­im­ately eight tables and the walls are covered with lovely pic­tures and paint­ings, cop­per pots and jugs and other English mem­or­ab­ilia. Continued