So … it was someone’s birthday, and the only way this particular individual knows how to celebrate is to embark on a wine-tasting-cum-food-exploration expedition. With a few willing friends in tow. It was a Malgas, Stanford, Hemel-en-Aarde, Hermanus style of adventure, with many stops along the way, so it comes to you as a few…
Read More

So, I’ve been lambasted by a friend for recently straying from the travel firmament in my Posts. He even threatened to unsubscribe! Well, then, back to travel tales… I’m going buffalo-rogue. Because that’s the name of Addo’s new(ish) — and very stylish — camp, Nyathi, directly north of Addo Rest Camp in the northern part…
Read More

I have just read a book. It affected me so deeply, I’m compelled to talk about it. The book is tense, horrifying, brutal. It leaves you speechless. But, oh, the writing is such poetry, the words have such beauty and finesse, you simply can’t put it down. It is South African poet and author Antjie…
Read More

Who’d believe that a flourless focaccia could taste so darn good? It was to pizzas we were heading but we were hijacked by our friend Jan, the Knysna artist who famously paints with his fingers (and yet manages to elicit the subtlest of effects like feathery eyelashes and delicate wisps of hair). Jan was fencing…
Read More

Gorgeous silkscreen wall hangings of portraits by the famous Old Masters. On the left, I know not!, but on the right, Johannes Vermeer’s unmistakeable “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, painted in 1665. These beautiful luminous faces hang in the Transkaroo Country Lodge’s wonderful coffee shop (delicious breakfasts, home-baked cakes, and both buffet and à la…
Read More

Oh, we do so want 2019 to be a good year for all of us, and for our beautiful country. A positive outlook, cooperation (and sharing, and teaching) between ourselves, and Respect for one another will get us there. Fingers and toes crossed … In the meanwhile, a few highlights of our Goodbyes to 2018…
Read More

Black Friday is behind you. Ahead, the madness of the end-of-year season. You’re tired, frazzled and fed up with work pressures, ultimatums and deadlines. All you want is silence and peace. So … I give you a silence so Zen it’s unnerving: Elandsberg Wilderness Cottages. Only five of them, they sit at a discreet distance…
Read More

The USA had its Route 66, so why can’t the Karoo have its Route 62? It was American crooner Nat King Cole who made sure Route 66 was immortalised in the history books with his song of the same name. The Rolling Stones sang it, as did Chuck Berry, Ray Charles and a great many…
Read More

Can you believe it’s been 12 years since this steam train ferried tourists and locals for 67 kilometres between Knysna and George, choofing across broad estuaries, rattling through pine plantations and dappled indigenous forest, huffing and puffing alongside cliff edges, and skirting shimmering lakes? It was in August 2006 that the train ground to a…
Read More

As many of you already know, Quirky World View sees things a little differently so I give you a number of not-so-run-of-the-mill pictures of Kgalagadi. More scenics, less wildlife. (Well, okay, just wait for the owls …) Did you know that the name Kgalagadi, translating as “the great thirstland”, in fact is a SeTswana word?…
Read More