George's Big Adventure - River Holiday

All our other dogs have been farm dogs. We go places, they stay at home and look after the house. They were happier that way, we were happier that way; who wants to share a car with a whimpering, shivering wreck more often than they have to? Right from the start with George however, he was going to be the family dog, the one who comes with us to the beach and ultimately on holiday to the Breede River. The first trip to the beach was a resounding success and from then on we knew he’d love the river. We just weren’t quite sure how we were going to fit him, no longer a puppy but a large, lanky dog, and our luggage, including food for ten days, in the car for the four hour journey.

In the end it was fine. The food and bags went on the roof, George and his cushion squashed in the back and drooled over Middle Daughter, who drew the short straw and got the very back seat. As a variation he panted down the neck of our son and tried to see out of the window clearly enough to count cars, sheep and telegraph poles, in between whining “Are we nearly there yet?” He was duly hushed by the teenagers, who with the diversion of iPods and earpieces tune out for the duration of the journey and no longer ask that dreaded question.

Exploring the sand bar in the afternoon at low tide

The reward for such patience, a steep grass hill leading down to  a wide stretch of water, a shallow sandy beach and, joy of joy, a sand bar that had shifted into perfect place since we’d last visited, allowing us to walk out into the middle of the river at low tide and creating a huge, relatively safe water play zone for dogs and kids.

As soon as we’d done all the regrettably essential grown-up things, like getting all the cool boxes off the roof, checking that the cool blocks had successfully countered the bright sunshine and stowing food into freezer and fridge, it was time to cool off from the hot journey in the river. George plunged in with joyous abandon, swimming and swimming between each and every member of the family, trying to keep tabs on us all. To start with we worried about him getting over-tired and sinking, but he just kept going.

"Hurry up, there the whole river to swim in!"

George heading out for an early morning swim at high tide

"It's hard work herding kayaks."

George's first voyage in the canoe with Youngest and me.

It soon became clear that he wasn’t going to be left behind when we took the canoe out either, as he leapt in after us next morning and started followed us up river. In the end we paddled back to shore and let him climb in with us, but made a shorter trip than usual, as he kept dipping a paw over the side, trying to drink the river and seemed likely to dive back in any minute. Over the next few days he got more used to being a canoe passenger and it became a slightly less hazardous under-taking.

We had four days of perfect summer holiday: swimming before breakfast, canoeing and the kids making their first attempts at water-skiing behind our friends’ boat. George regarded this activity with deep suspicion and it took just a few splashy failed attempts by the girls getting up on the skis, for him to become convinced that they needed rescuing from the persecuting noisy monster circling around them. He kept jumping in to swim out to them and in the end he was becoming so distressed that my mum had to put him on the lead and take him off for a walk to distract him.

In between times there was much baking of bread and rock buns (essential fodder in the river family tradition), and generous meals conjured up by each of the two families in turn. And croquet, can you believe that with such limited space we still found space for the croquet set on the roof?! Middle Daughter devised a complex course worthy of golf that kept the game going for hours.

A rainy day was forecast and we looked forward to huddling in bed late with books and cups of tea,  long games of Catan or cards, perhaps just a bit more baking. That was Monday, duly wet with storms and rain showers. Tuesday dawned with rain reduced to drizzle and looked set to clear up, but at breakfast I noticed that the water level was just creeping over the high tide mark onto the grass. Ten minutes later we were sure of it. The river was rising.

Suddenly we were at action stations, dragging the canoes higher up the lawn and taking the motor boat out of the water, just in case. We swam in the rising water as we did so and within an hour were able to paddle the canoes over what had been the bottom lawn. A slight check came when my glasses, carefully removed to avoid losing them in the river, were no longer when I’d left them with shoes and hats on the kayak, well above  the waterline. Our son had taken the things off the kayak to paddle it into the flood waters and hadn’t noticed my glasses. After much crawling around the ex-lawn in the rising water, we gave them up as lost and retired up the hill to tea, rock buns and to watch the still rising waters creep alarmingly quickly up the hill.

That clump of green mid-stream is the willow tree from previous pictures.

Luckily the house we stay at is high up the hill, so unlike the family several plots down, we weren’t having to move furniture and pack our bags. There were several meters of hillside in reserve. My husband had planned to go into Swellendam, but got as far as the dip in the access road, where water was already lapping at the edges, and changed his mind. Lucky that he did as the water kept on coming and halfway through the afternoon the road was at least a meter under water.

Watching trees float by on the flood

George was used to high and low tide by now, recognising that sometimes he could walk out onto the sand bar and others it was swimming all the way. But he knew that here was something wrong about the water this time and wasn’t nearly as happy letting us swim in it. There were some rather painful rescue attempts, as his idea is simply to grab hold of an arm in his mouth and drag you to shore.
That night there was more thunder, more rain and next morning we watched as the river rose even further until we could paddle the canoes right around the milkwood tree halfway up the hill between the house and the river. The main flow of the river was fast and deep brown, all memories of tidal cycle forgotten, carrying branches, logs and whole trees rapidly past. Our lawn became our own private lagoon just enough removed from the strong current, where we could swim, hold canoe races and explore the jungle of trees on the adjoining plot by canoe, an adventure in itself.

P restraining George from leaping in to the rescue

Heading off to explore uncharted jungle waters

Middle Daughter practising fishing casts, and the water now round the milkwood tree

Kayak vs canoe, racing across the lawn. That wisp of green is the willow again!

We had four days of being officially marooned, luckily without any real hardship, as we’d all brought enough food with us for the whole holiday. At last on Friday the waters began to recede, leaving a stinking carpet of mud behind them. George needed a hose down after each river foray, as did our feet after we finally braved the main river in our canoe to explore the aftermath. Even then the current was strong and violent eddies every now and again would knock us off course, so it was a perilous adventure!

By our last day the river was almost back to normal levels, but the tide hadn’t quite resumed normal play, and the sand bank we’d so enjoyed at the beginning of the holiday seemed to have been shifted bodily into the reeds. The kids never did get to work any further on their water-skiing, which was disappointing, but we had had an adventure that we’ll not forget and plenty of relaxation and down time to set us up for the new school year. George enjoyed his holiday and was just as happy to get home again and back to chasing hares every morning.

A promise. The waters at their highest.

Happy 2014 to you all! I hope your holidays were relaxing and free of floods and other natural disasters!

Grootbos Nature Reserve Part 2 - Fynbos and Philosophy

This is the second installment of our wonderful night away at Grootbos Private Nature Reserve. Read the first part here.

The view from our deck at dawn

Waking up in the morning to a dawn sky, soaking in the bath and watching colours change as the sun creeps over the hill behind us, listening to bird chatter in the fynbos, a magical start to the day at Grootbos
 

The bath tub with the best ever view

We’d planned two activities for the morning – if we’d been staying longer we would have just chosen one and had a lazy lie-in, but as it was we were at breakfast by 8 and spoilt for choice both with the buffet and the cooked to order hot breakfast.

There were cereals, muesli, yoghurt and bowls of seeds, nuts, raspberry and passionfruit puree as toppings, fruit salad, sliced fruits, cold meats and even smoked trout as well as fresh croissants and muffins. I went for a very decadent Eggs Benedict and then re-visited the buffet because I couldn’t resist the smoked trout and a croissant.

Grootbos is so much more than just a lovely five star retreat, though it does all that superbly well in a friendly and unpretentious style. I loved all the pampering, fantastic food and comfort, but it was the activities and the place itself that made the biggest impression. The nature  reserve grew out of the owner, Michael Lutzeyer’s, mission to conserve the beautiful fynbos eco-system of this region and their conservation programme has developed to an award-winning world class level. Not just that but the importance of enriching and giving back to the community here is actively recognised in two very successful social responsibility programmes.

The plant nursery at the Green Futures project

We were shown round both by Anecke, herself a graduate of the horticulture Green Futures training programme. Every year eight candidates are carefully selected from the two neighbouring communities of Stanford and Gansbaai and receive a very thorough grounding in both indigenous horticulture and basic life skills. As well as learning all about the fynbos plants and how to grow them, they learn computer skills, how to keep accounts, how to drive, language and interview skills. There is also an exchange link with the Eden Project in Cornwall UK, so every year three students get to travel there for three weeks and experience conservation  overseas.

The vegetable gardens at the Growing the Future programme

The second programme Growing the Future is aimed at local women between the ages of 18 and 35 and is a year course in growing organic vegetables and fruits. After three years this is becoming a self-sustaining initiative, growing produce to sell to the lodges, free-range chickens providing the eggs we’d just eaten for our breakfasts, bee-keeping producing delicious fynbos honey to sell in the shop and making preserves for the restaurants. Graduates from both programmes receive a nationally accredited certificate and can go on to do further training on site as guides or as lodge staff, or apply to do further horticultural training elsewhere. Many of them choose to work at Grootbos and the cheerful faces, confident and individual personalities of all the staff and guides we met are a testament to the success of the training.

Lavender for companion planting in the vegetable garden

We were whisked back to the lodge just in time to sally forth once more on our 4x4 fynbos safari with Jo, a wonderfully eccentric guide with a passion for her subject and a sprinkling of philosophy thrown in.

As we left the road and headed up a mountain trail she stopped to pick mysterious sprigs of restio, erica, protea and with hilarious deadpan anecdotes showed us so much more about how the natural fynbos eco-system works.

I’d never realised that the humble sour fig, which grows like crazy on our farm, is a vital refuge for small animals such as tortoises during fires. They can creep into its shelter and the succulent leaves protect them from the fire’s heat. I hadn’t known that restios are either male or female, that certain ericas need fire to reproduce: so many details shared in an entertaining and fascinating way. We also discovered the source of that elusive honey fynbos scent  that pervades the bush around the lodge – metalasia muricata, or its less than glamorous common name, the cauliflower bush.

Jo picking sprigs of metalasia muricata

Jo stopped the vehicle at a beautiful viewpoint for snacks, delicious home-baked cookies in four flavours, and while we were eating and chatting she wove all the plant samples picked on the way into a stunning bouquet, then turned wedding photographer to each couple in turn.

After this tour we were filled with even more respect  and admiration for how much Grootbos has done in the last 20 years to preserve, restore and protect the incredibly rich flora, gradually acquiring more land as neighbouring farms were sold, until they now have over 2000 hectares of pristine hill, milkwood forest and mountain.

The main lodge at sunset

Back at the lodge it was already lunch time, time for us to reluctantly leave, but we stayed long enough  to sample the lunch buffet, a fresh and flavoursome feast of salads with a choice of three hot mains to follow and even a dessert, though we were still too full from breakfast to make it all the way through the menu.

There were so many more activities that there just wasn’t time for in our short visit: horse riding trails through the fynbos, beach walks and picnics, a coastal cave tour, whale watching in the winter months, and of course the spa in the milkwood forest where there is no need of canned birdsong relaxation tapes, as the real thing wafts in through the open doors.

All in all I found Grootbos a thoroughly magical place to visit and the memories are sustaining me through a rather hectic week. If you get the opportunity, do not hesitate – go there and stay for as long as you can!

Fynbos bouquet

Note for my non-South African readers: fynbos is the name given to a particular type of vegetation mainly found in the southern tip of Africa. Low bushy green scrub is what it looks like to the eye, not a tree in sight. But when you look up close you find an enormous variety of different plants and flowers. Our guide, Jo, explained that to be identified as fynbos it should have four principal types of plants: proteas, ericas, restios and bulbinous plants. It’s an eco-system that supports many birds and small animals, but not a single giraffe or elephant! It's beautiful, fascinating and just as an essential item on any traveller's bucket list as the Big Five.

Disclosure: Our stay at Grootbos was complimentary, but I received no remuneration for writing this post and all opinions are my own.

Grootbos Nature Reserve – Five Star Fynbos Getaway

The view from our suite

We’re back from a fabulous night away at Grootbos, a gorgeous nature reserve overlooking Walker Bay, near Hermanus, whither I was very kindly invited, to experience its magic for myself. A patchwork of impressions and memories: a rich green canvas of incredibly varied fynbos, friendly faces, fabulous flavours, mysterious milkwood forest, winding paths and entrancing views. You could stay for a week and never have a dull moment, but we crammed as much as we could into our 24 hours and would happily go back for more tomorrow!

Looking up at Forest Lodge from the road, we had no idea of what we’d find... we saw an unimposing row of low linear buildings perched high on a hill that seemed uniformly green with the native fynbos, dense and bushy, of the forest there was no obvious sign... But as soon as we parked the car the magic began to weave its spell.

Winding paths led through a beautifully planted fynbos garden, scented with honey and shaded by ancient milkwood trees. The paths are designed so that you hardly see the main lodge building until you are upon it, feeling almost lost in the forest, when in fact it is right there all the time.

Forest Lodge is spacious, understated and modern, soaking up the views from huge glass walls, softened by lots of wood, textured fabrics with patterns of leaf and protea, natural decorations and fynbos flower arrangements.

The warm welcome from all the staff, who are always smiling and genuinely happy to be working in such a beautiful place really adds to the positive energy.

The pool at Forest Lodge overlooks pristine fynbos and the ocean

In our suite/cottage we were spoilt for space. Built on the same understated modern lines as the main lodge, it is warm and welcoming, with wooden floors.

There’s a bedroom, a sitting room with a built in fireplace, a huge bathroom with the tub right in the big window looking out of the view and even a second bathroom. The deck in front links both rooms and the fynbos comes right up to it, so that you can lie in bed watching the birds flitting in and out of bushes and smell that delicious honey scent in elusive wafts on the morning breeze. There’s an outdoor shower out there too, but it wasn’t quite warm enough to tempt us. The sitting room has a comfortable leather sofa, lovely wooden tables and best of all the fireplace with a generous stack of logs. We lost no time in making a cup of tea and putting our feet up after our long drive.

Patrick and Chumani  on our Milkwood Forest walk

We’d signed up for a guided walk through the milkwood forest at 5. It was just us and our guide Chumani, who led us off down the paved paths, until we came to the beginning of a small trail. As soon as we’d left the main path it felt like we were in the middle of ancient forests far from anywhere. The milkwood trees take forever to grow, some of them being several hundred years old, and they are not tall, but there is a peace and quietness to the air, hanging lichens, twisted branches. It’s baboon territory, the home of birds and buck, but although we see the tracks of buck and the baboon poo and twigs they have broken, the animals themselves are elusive. Chumani was an entertaining guide, telling us all sorts of stories and  the uses of many plants learned from his grandfather.

Twisting branches of ancient milkwoods, festooned with lichens and mosses

Then it’s a meander back to our cottage to relax and change before dinner. The sun is streaming in now as the sun dips lower and we both start to go mad with our cameras catching angles and patterns and feeling almost giddy off on our own without the kids.

Photographers on holiday

  A spectacular sunset over the ocean reminds us why sundowners are such a great South African institution. We have cups of tea instead and leap up every five seconds to take another photo.

Then just when I think the drama is over and am about to view the afterglow from the vantage point of the shower, I spot a sliver of new moon hanging just above the sunset orange. It feels like a wonderful promise of more magic to come.

Dinner was a five course gourmet feast. A full on review would be a blog post in itself, but suffice it to say that I had a wonderful time identifying flavours, tasting  my husband’s dishes as well as my own and trying desperately to photograph the plates in appropriate food blogger style in low light conditions. We had a hilarious time improvising a mini studio with his phone as light source and napkin as a diffuser.

The taste highlights for me were the amuse bouche of fish tartare, mussel cracker fish with coriander and lemon zest in a crisp filo pastry shell, and the oh so tender kingklip with a pea and chorizo sauce.

Grilled kingklip, pea and chorizo veloute,tatsoi and truffle salad with improvised studio lighting

The night was clear, starry, windy and rather chilly, so it was a brisk walk rather than romantic stroll back to our cottage after dinner, where the fire had been lit for us, curtains drawn, bed turned down. It was cosy and intimate, the bed very comfortable and, we fell asleep to the sounds of wind gusting around the roof, looking forward to all the activities planned for the next day.

Our next morning’s activities and fynbos safari make up another post, so read Part 2  for more Grootbos magic!

Disclosure: Our stay at Grootbos was complimentary. I received no remuneration for writing this post and all opinions are my own.

Dreaming of Luxury and Romance

My husband is very bah humbug about Valentine’s Day. He quite rightly reckons that if you love someone you tell them so every day and in every way without being dictated to by the hype of one particular occasion. So we’ve never done the roses and dinner by candlelight 14th of February thing. Instead we have our own funny little tradition that I shared at the end of this post with hearts on our hands.

However it looks like this year I’m going to have a luxury romantic break come my way anyway. Out of the blue yesterday I received an invitation from Grootbos Nature Reserve to come and stay for a night. Now this is a stunning nature reserve two hours from Cape Town, overlooking the ocean.  A place of beach picnics, whale watching (in winter and spring) of beautiful views and pristine fynbos, it’s a five star luxury retreat with fabulous food, and a whole story behind it that I’m looking forward to discovering. So romance in a luxury nutshell, and I get to take my husband!

We probably won’t get there till March, things being busy here right now, but Grootbos do have a fabulous special offer on for the whole of February if you are feeling tempted to go overboard with the spoiling. Their Month of Love offers a Valentine’s half price special  (half price is R2100 a night per person sharing, so think lavish!) which includes all meals, a selection of activities including that beach picnic, horse-riding and all sorts, and a free spa treatment.

I’ll let you know all about it after our visit, but if you do get there first let me know what you think... or, on second thoughts perhaps, keep it a secret so it’ll be a wonderful surprise for me!

Disclosure: I am being offered a complimentary night at Grootbos but am receiving no other remuneration for writing about them and all opinions are my own.