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

Winner Magical Holiday in Knysna

CONGRATULATIONS to Hydeh-Mari Elkington of South Africa who has won a magical hol­i­day for two adults and two chil­dren (under 12 years of age) on the Knysna Lagoon — 2 nights on board a Lightleys Holiday Houseboat, with one of those nights moor­ed at Thesen’s Island Harbour Town, and 2 nights at Phantom View River Resort, with a bottle of spark­ling wine and oysters on arrival.

Hydeh-Mari, your voucher is on its way. Please con­tact Lightleys Holiday Houseboats & Phantom View River Resort to redeem your voucher (valid until 31 December 2011). We’re sure you’ll enjoy your stay! Continued

Pezula certified as a Preferred Family Destination

Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa, South Africa’s award win­ning resort on the Eastern Head of Knysna, has been cer­ti­fied as a Preferred Family Destination by Preferred Boutique, a col­lec­tion of small, lux­ury boutique hotels in a host of stun­ning loc­a­tions across the world. According to Gert Venter, GM of Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa, Preferred Family Certified hotels and resorts are des­tin­a­tions that go bey­ond family-friendly. “Each offers unique amen­it­ies, cus­tom­ised pro­grammes, and age-appropriate activ­it­ies for young guests and their grown-up trav­el­ling companions.”

Continued

Win a Magical Holiday in Knysna (closed)

Magical Holiday

WIN a magical hol­i­day for two adults and two chil­dren (under 12 years of age) on the Knysna Lagoon — 2 nights on board a Lightleys Holiday Houseboat and 2 nights at Phantom View River Resort. The Knysna Lagoon is an 18km long tidal estu­ary which stretches from the fam­ous Knysna Heads, which guard its entrance from the Indian Ocean, and joins the 60km long Knysna River that starts in the Outeniqua Mountains.

The Prize

Valued at R6500, the prize includes:

• Two nights’ accom­mod­a­tion on board a Lightleys Holiday Houseboat (self cater­ing basis)
  • with one of those nights moor­ing with your house­boat at Thesen’s Island Harbour Town
• Two nights’ accom­mod­a­tion at Phantom View River Resort (self cater­ing basis)
  • with a bottle of spark­ling wine and oysters on arrival
• Continued

Winner 3 Luxurious Nights in Knysna

CONGRATULATIONS to Grethe Rademan of South Africa who has won 3 nights at the fab­ulous 5-star graded Kanonkop House, with the most spec­tac­u­lar views on the Garden Route, from ‘the best rooms in Knysna’ (latest Frommer’s South Africa Travel Guide). The prize includes accom­mod­a­tion for 2 people shar­ing for 3 con­sec­ut­ive nights, break­fast daily, local bever­ages, breath­tak­ing views, per­sonal atten­tion and relaxed luxury.

Grethe, your voucher is on its way. Please con­tact Kanonkop House to redeem the voucher (valid until 15 September 2011). We’re sure you’ll enjoy your stay! Continued

Condé Nast Travellers vote Pezula Spa one of the best in the World

Pezula Spa

Pezula Spa at Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa, Knysna, was named one of the top spas in the world in the Condé Nast Traveller’s annual Readers’ Spa Awards 2011, held in London last week.

The awards high­light the finest spas around the globe includ­ing the best hotel spas, spa retreats, day spas and thermal spas, based on read­ers’ votes on cri­teria includ­ing spa facil­it­ies, indi­vidual approach, ambience/design, body and facial treat­ments, amen­it­ies and products, exer­cise pro­grammes, cuisine, as well as qual­ity of ser­vice and staff. Continued

Win 3 Luxurious Nights in Knysna at Kanonkop House (closed)

WIN 3 nights at the fab­ulous 5-star graded Kanonkop House and relax into  the most spec­tac­u­lar views on the Garden Route, from ‘the best rooms in Knysna’ (latest Frommer's South Africa Travel Guide).

Kanonkop House

Magnificently set over­look­ing private indi­gen­ous forest, the fam­ous Knysna Lagoon and Heads, a feel­ing of space and serenity per­vades Kanonkop House.  The won­der­ful indi­gen­ous gar­dens and abund­ant local flora and fauna includ­ing bush buck, mon­goose, and fab­ulous bird­life are a testi­mony to the eco-friendly man­ner in which the prop­erty is man­aged. Luxuriously-appointed suites fea­ture chic designer touches and indi­vidual style with private decks from which to enjoy the breath­tak­ing views over the ever-changing estu­ary all the way to the Indian Ocean. Relaxed lux­ury and the beau­ti­ful set­ting con­spire so that guests have no option but to take a deep breath, shake off their cares and sink into the view.

The Prize

Valued at over R10 000, the prize includes:

• Accommodation for 2 people shar­ing for 3 con­sec­ut­ive nights
• Breakfast daily
• Local bever­ages
• Continued

Pezula ranked in World’s Top 20 Best Golf Resorts

Pezula has been ranked No 7 among the world's top 20 best golf resorts by the British web­site Primelocation.com, the only golf resort in Africa to be nom­in­ated. A journ­al­ist on the web­site writes: “It is hard to say why or when the first per­son cooked up the idea of meld­ing sun, golf, hol­i­day homes and hotels into a single resort... they all offer one thing – an upmar­ket hol­i­day resort feel where you can own a golf villa or apart­ment and play on a private course…to many people they offer an ideal mix of their favour­ite sport as well as a safe, often traffic-free fam­ily envir­on­ment near the sea aug­men­ted by the refine­ments of a four or five star hotel on site.” Continued

Pezula hosts free rugby coaching clinic for local kids

Pezula’s Field of Dreams came alive on Wednesday (17 November) as scores of local young rugby hope­fuls arrived to meet some of their rugby her­oes and attend a free hour and a half coach­ing clinic.

This was part of The JAG Foundation’s Big Boy Scooterthon (15–21 November), which saw three Provincial Super 15 Players, Nick Koster, Tiger Bax and Tim Whitehead, trav­el­ling 1000 kms from Cape Town to Pezula and back on Big Boy scoot­ers. Along the way they stopped to host four coach­ing clin­ics for pre­vi­ously dis­ad­vant­aged kids. Continued

Geoffrey Murray joins Justin Bonello on "Cooked — Out of the Frying Pan"

This month Zachary’s Executive Chef, Geoffrey Murray, will appear in an epis­ode of Season IV’s Cooked with Justin Bonello on DStv’s BBC Lifestyle channel.

The epis­ode shows Geoffrey Murray and his team with Justin in Zachary’s kit­chen at Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa in Knysna, pre­par­ing and cook­ing some of the dishes from Zachary’s menu, includ­ing seed loaf, green tomato rel­ish, octopus carpac­cio and salami.

The focus of the series is to show how Justin, who has made his name cook­ing in the out­doors, copes with work­ing in a formal kitchen.

After three sea­sons of Cooked, and hav­ing pub­lished the first Cooked in Africa cook­book, Justin will be seen cook­ing in top haute-cuisine styled eat­er­ies and fam­ily res­taur­ants where he attempts to mas­ter or at least gain insight into a smor­gas­bord of cook­ing styles from around the globe. Continued

Zachary’s at Pezula wins two top Diners Club Winelist Awards

Werner Wentzel

Zachary’s Restaurant at Pezula Resort Hotel & Spa, Knysna has received two top awards from the 2010 Diners Club Winelist Awards -  a Diamond Award and a joint award for the best winel­ist coun­try­wide which is shared with Bosman’s Restaurant at the Grande Roche in Paarl. The awards were handed out at a pres­ti­gi­ous event in Cape Town on Monday night, 13 September.

This is the third year run­ning that Zachary’s has won a Diamond Award for its winel­ist, but the first time it has received the top accol­ade for “Best Restaurant Winelist”. This year the res­taur­ant also won an Award of Excellence in recog­ni­tion of an out­stand­ing winel­ist from the American pub­lic­a­tion “Wine Spectator” for the fourth year in a row. Continued

Rasondale Farm Stall

Rasondale Farm Stall

We drove back from Knysna on Monday and en route heard from our mort­gage broker that our mort­gage had been approved.  My hus­band already owns two prop­er­ties but it’s a first time house pur­chase for me so under­stand­ably I was pretty excited!  Being sans a bottle of decent bub­bly on our road trip we hooked a right at a road side cafe and treated ourselves to a pot of tea and a scone — we shared the scone; after all we have a mort­gage to pay off!

What a find Rasondale is; situ­ated on the N2 some­where between the Breede River and Riviersonderend (actu­ally fol­low­ing fur­ther Google research Rasondale is loc­ated in Swellendam) it’s a wel­come oasis on the 500km trip between Knysna and Cape Town ... Continued

Chatters in Knysna

Chatters in Knysna

We decided to have an early din­ner on our last night in Knysna so we could get back to our B&B in time for the clos­ing cere­mony of the soc­cer World Cup.  We were on our way to the Waterfront and passed a little place called Chatters — we hadn’t quite decided what we wanted to eat but it was cold and the sign for 'wood fired piz­zas' made our decision for us.  The res­taur­ant was empty (don’t take that as a bad sign; it was only 5pm!) and we were shown to a table slap bang next to a pot bel­lied stove — clearly the best table in the house!

We were fam­ished so didn’t waste any time order­ing our din­ner: a bur­ger for my hus­band and I chose a pasta.  The bur­ger arrived with proper, homemade chips and the patty was piled high with bacon, feta cheese and the other rel­ishes and top­pings that make a bur­ger a great bur­ger! Continued

Bosuns Bar & Grill in Knysna

Bosuns in Knysna

We had the most deli­cious lunch on Sunday.  We spent the week­end in Knysna (for the mara­thon and Oyster Festival) and after cel­eb­rat­ing a bit too enthu­si­ast­ic­ally on Saturday were grate­ful for the dis­mal, grey, cold and rainy weather.  It elim­in­ated the chance of sight­see­ing and invited instead the oppor­tun­ity to relax!  By lunch time we were hungry so took a drive down to a pub over­look­ing the lagoon:  Bosuns Bar and Grill.

We were the first of the lunch cus­tom­ers (arriv­ing at 11.40am — a bit early) but the pub soon filled up and we were told that all tables in the din­ing area had been reserved.  We found a spot in the bar though and settled down with a pot of tea and enjoyed the warmth of the log fire blaz­ing in the fire­place. Continued

SA stars to shine at the Knysna Oyster Festival

What do Vanessa Haywood, Bruce Fordyce and Jonty Rhodes have in com­mon? They are all par­ti­cip­at­ing in vari­ous sport­ing events at this year’s Pick n Pay Knysna Oyster Festival which takes places from 2–11 July!

Actress, model and star of District 9, Vanessa Haywood will com­pete in the festival’s gruelling BIG 5 chal­lenge to raise money for The Starfish Foundation. She is cur­rently in the UK shoot­ing another movie, The Sweet Shop, and train­ing at the same time in pre­par­a­tion for tak­ing on five unique sport­ing chal­lenges – the Pick n Pay Weekend Argus Rotary Knysna Cycle Tour MTB and Road races, the Salomon Featherbed Trail Run presen­ted by Petzl, Duesouth XTERRA’s dual sports chal­lenge and the Pick n Pay Cape Times Knysna Forest Marathon. Continued