Win a 2 Night Stay in the Heart of the Cape Overberg

De Kloof Luxury Estate

WIN a 2 night stay in Swellendam, the heart of the Cape Overberg, at the 5-star graded De Kloof Luxury Estate. This boutique hotel is a styl­ish, his­tor­ical mas­ter­piece of Cape Dutch archi­tec­ture and is a national monu­ment (dated 1801) with spa­cious, designer garden rooms and suites, court­yards sur­roun­ded by indi­gen­ous trees, zen & herb rose gar­dens, bird­life and koi ponds. This intim­ate boutique estate is situ­ated in a green secluded val­ley with breath­tak­ing views, yet still within walk­ing dis­tance of the his­tor­ical town centre of Swellendam.

The Prize

Valued at over R7 500, the prize includes:

• Two nights accom­mod­a­tion in a Manor XL Suite with King-size, extra-length water­bed and zen style lux­uri­ous bath­room includ­ing jac­uzzi bath
• Welcome cock­tail
• Daily mouth­wa­ter­ing full break­fast, “Cap Classique” and newspaper
• Wine-tasting of an excel­lent wine estate from Robertson's Route 62 Wine Valley
• Evening tapas meal plat­ter for 2 includ­ing an award-winning bottle of wine
• Continued

I ♥ Swellendam Because ...

I ♥ Swellendam

Hi, I’m Jenny from Kippe Rivier Country House in Swellendam in the Cape Overberg.

Swellendam IS BEST KNOWN FOR Youngberries (brame), Marloth Nature Reserve, Drostdy Museum one of the best in the coun­try, it depicts the life of Swellendam in the early days, the archi­tec­ture and its people.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT The Faerie Sanctuary or pick­ing young­ber­ries at Wildebraam Berry Farm.
THE BEST scenery PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN AT the stoep of our coun­try house Klippe Rivier, the view of the dam and the mag­ni­fi­cent Langeberg Mountains in the back­ground or at the lovely Swellendam Golf Club.

OTHER HAPPY SNAPS in front of the Moederkerk, affec­tion­ately called the Gothic Wedding cake, the mag­ni­fi­cent NGK Church in the main road. Continued

Blombos caves – early cave men were more than thugs

Blombos Caves

'Mom, how did we first come to Earth?' It's my son (why does he always man­age to ask ques­tions like this from the back seat of the car?). I gawp at him in the rear vis­ion mir­ror; aren't four and three quarter year olds sup­posed to ask easier ques­tions? I've already had to field: why is the sky blue, what does guilty mean, and who made the first plants and animals?

But to answer this par­tic­u­lar ques­tion, whilst hurt­ling at 120 kilo­metres an hour along the N2 towards Swellendam with one of those almighty new BMW thingies prac­tic­ally inside my boot, is, well, not the most oppor­tune moment, really. I take a deep breath. And noth­ing hap­pens. My brain and mouth aren't quite man­aging syn­chron­isa­tion. I glance hope­fully at my other half on the seat next to me. He's engrossed in a map ... 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

Only one month to go to Up the Creek 2010

Up The Creek 2010

One river, three stages, more than 30 live music and com­edy acts and 2000 fest­ival goers with a pas­sion for some of South Africa’s best music in com­mon – get your­self ready for Up the Creek 2010.

From 5 – 7 February, Creekers can look for­ward to per­form­ances by a selec­tion of some of the best in the enter­tain­ment industry: The Dirty Skirts, Taxi Violence, The Rudimentals, Bed on Bricks, Flat Stanley, Dan Patlansky, Ashtray Electric, The Pretty Blue Guns, Dave Ferguson, The Black Cat Bones, Andra, Ryno Velvet, the Boulevard Blues Band, Akkedis, Van Coke Kartel (acous­tic), Hot Water, The GODS, Willim Welsyn en die Sunrise Toffies and many more will be joined on stage with a selec­tion of some ser­i­ously funny comedi­ans, like Corné and Twakkie, Martin Evans and Dave Levinson ... Continued

Swellendam Photograph

Tsakane Tshabalala sub­mit­ted this great pho­to­graph of Swellendam, a small town situ­ated about 2 hours out of Cape Town. With a pop­u­la­tion in the region of 30 000, Swellendam offers small town hos­pit­al­ity, com­bined with many attrac­tions and activ­it­ies for the vis­itor, and is well worth a visit. You can read more about the Town of Swellendam in a pre­vi­ous art­icle pub­lished at Swellendam - A Swell Weekend Getaway. Continued

A Swell Weekend Getaway

Swellendam

The small town of Swellendam, is loc­ated approx­im­ately half way between Cape Town and Mossel Bay on the N2 highway.You will know you are reach­ing the town when you pass over the Breederivier, and see the Ostrich pro­cessing facil­ity on the right hand side, approach­ing from Cape Town. To reach the main road of the town, lined with his­toric build­ings, turn off the high­way and travel a short dis­tance along a minor road.

With a pop­u­la­tion in the region of 30 000, Swellendam offers small town hos­pit­al­ity, com­bined with many activ­it­ies for the tour­ist, and is well worth a visit, even if one is only passing through. One of the most unique attrac­tions in the town is the Sulina Faerie Sanctuary. An ideal fam­ily exper­i­ence, this small piece of fantasy was the brain child of a recent set­tler to the town, who has cre­ated a magical, mys­tical haven for all things fairy. Continued

De Hoop Nature Reserve

De Hoop Reserve

De Hoop Nature Reserve is roughly three hours drive from Cape Town and just east of the town of Bredasdorp. The Reserve cov­ers an area of 34,000 hec­tares and one of the favor­ite des­tin­a­tions for those who want to spend time away from fren­etic city life. The reserve offers diverse scenery for hikers, bikers and bird watch­ers and Koppie Alleen is a fam­ous lookout spot for the avid whale watch­ers, with about 40% of the world’s Southern Right whales com­ing to the De Hoop Marine Reserve each year dur­ing breed­ing season.

Visitors have a lot of free­dom within the reserve. Take a leis­urely game drive along the cir­cu­lar route that cov­ers the reserve and see the Cape moun­tain zebra, eland, grey ree­bok, the rare bon­te­bok and if you are lucky you will see the mat­ing dance of the ostrich. The reserve is also home to cara­cal and leo­pards and the ever-present troops of baboons. Visitors can, how­ever, safely leave their vehicles dur­ing a game drive to explore on foot and view some of the 1,500 plant spe­cies up close. Continued