Sunshine journalism and the G&T revolution

I have been trying desperately to think of one good thing about 2016. Brexit, Trump, Syria, drowned refugees, bomb blasts, terror attacks, the drought, the death of David Bowie, Black Friday, violence on campus, my personal life, oh dear, heartbreak, writing a painful book, losing a pet, moving house. I’ve been thinking about it all week.

Where is that one little ray of sunshine?

And it then it just struck me.

It has just struck me that this is the very first year in my adult life I haven’t been a South African crime statistic. Can you imagine that? I mean like, no crime has been committed against me, and as far as I remember, I haven’t committed a crime.

It might not seem like a big deal to you, but to me it is a startling and wonderful revelation. In the past thirty years I have been mugged many times, held at knifepoint, held at gunpoint, thieved and burgled more than I can count, robbed of three or four cars, armed robbed, home invaded, attacked and stabbed in the head, had all my possessions stolen; and then again. I've been to the cops more than thirty times in thirty years. You know, it’s like South Africa. 

I can’t even begin to come up with an inventory of stolen things, apart from my whole life, except to note that there was one ghetto blaster that had serious street voodoo and managed to not get stolen for close on twenty something years before dying a natural appliance death in rural Limpopo. God alone knows how that ghetto blaster pulled it off. 

So howabout that then? All of a freelance Friday, here I am, the chosen one, finally that fabulous statistic. I have been granted one whole crime free year in South Africa. And it feels great. Send champagne, send whisky, send fresh horses, send love; send a SA Crime Stats Award in chrome; send strength to the constitutional democracy’s arm. Oh wait, send some artisanal gin if you could. I’ve noticed – heh - there is a G&T revolution sweeping the country. Think amber, verde, rooibos infused, black pepper, basil, cucumber, decolonised. 

* Images courtesy of the Latitude Group & Francois d'Elbee x

Sex, spring, mountain gardens

Hopeful shoot, bursting bud. Wicked, wicked anthurium (yes that’s the rude pink one in the photo). It’s impossible to ignore the arousal of spring out here in the mountains of the Magoebaskloof, Limpopo. Everywhere I look there’s a flirtatious azalea, a blossoming cherry, the sweet smelling jasmine. I cannot stay at my desk, I have to get out and explore.

Marloe’s Garden I head for the jardim of the fabulous Marloe Scott Wilson. Soft view, tall trees, horses, dogs, cats, delight. We sit on the porch and drink wine and talk gardens and life. Marloe got into urban gardening in London in the 70s and is passionate about edible gardens, companion planting, making compost, planting at the new moon, talking to your seedlings and using available resources. All the things that make me go zing. I leave with bunches of greens and packets of heirloom seeds.

Oh me oh my, the clivias I go completely weak kneed at the sight of a flowering clivia which is making morning walks a wobbly affair. Every shady garden pocket in Haenertsburg village is lit with the clivias flowering in peach, apricot, orange, yellow-orange, vermillion, tangerine. I grow them from seed for pleasure, and think of my mother and the fabulous Lisa Atherstone who has a clivia nursery in the dreaming heights of George’s Valley near here. www.wholsesale-nursery.co.za

Hello Cheerio We walk gently as friends in the afternoon under the pin oaks and crab apples; gaze greedily at the outrageous spectacle of azaleas, cherry blossoms and water. Cheerio Gardens are the mountain’s most famous English exotic gardens and were started by the pioneering Box Thompson after the First World War.  

www.cheeriogardens.co.za

Sequoia Another treasure of Magoebaskloof is the gentle, gracious Sequoia Gardens, lovingly tended over the years by the delightful Jack Holloway. I do slow pans across calming dam views, close ups into the erotic blue iris. I may never be the same again. See Jack’s blog on https://sequoiagardens.wordpress.com

Albie’s Orchid I drink a whisky with Albie Leiding, pharmacist, philosopher, gardener and gentleman. He lives in Agatha in Tzaneen and the orchids in his house and on his veranda delight us every spring and summer. He tends them carefully. He knows their Latin names, their daily mood swings, their favourite songs. Pure plant porn.

My grandmother’s tibouchinas Like ballerinas in pink tutus these trees prance across the garden stage, frilly and delightful. They were my grandmother Elsie Tooley’s favourite trees and they’re flowering early this year. Wander with a G&T www.kingswalden.co.za

Horse shit I head for the fabulous Denise Tooley at Minas and load up 100kg of compost and horse and sheep manure. The horses, Tigger, Amber and Naledi are very beautiful, especially when sun kissed, but they can be unruly if not downright anarchic. Denise shouts at them when they get into the veggie garden but we are still grateful for their help in enriching the Minas gardens and my very own. www.minas.co.za

Ten reasons to visit Magoebaskloof now

The spring show is about to begin “In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, when the birds do sing, hey-ding-a-ding ding, cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-wee, ta-witta-woo!”  Come and see the astonishing spring spectacle on our mountain here in Limpopo province as the azaleas and cherry blossoms do their wild pink, purple, peach thang and everything is reflected in silver dams. It’s completely outrageous. OMG, sweetmotherofmary, hawu, yona yo, faints with delight. The annual Spring Fair is on from the 24^th of September to the 2^nd of October.  www.mountaingetaways.co.za

There’s fabulous soul food Mina’s Neighbourhood Food Market is happening on the 4^th of September and it’s the best food jol on the mountain featuring gourmet burgers, trout platters, sushi, curry, bliss bowls and more. All in a glorious farm setting with cool people and hot music. www.minas.co.za

The cemetery has views to die for Set amongst old gardens and ancient trees at the top of the hill with far reaching views, Haenertsburg has a fabulous cemetery and everyone visits it all the time: happy hikers, sentimental relatives, cooing lovers, groping teenagers, day trippers, weekenders, the whole lot. Pack a picnic or sundowners and head up the hill www.magoebasklooftourism.co.za

The beer is flowing There’s a new brew rising here on the mountain. Zwakala Brewery, Limpopo’s first organic craft brewery has opened its doors and its taps. The name Zwakala means ‘come closer’ and people from all over the world are pulling in, including a couple in a small car who drove all the way from Germany. Seriously. www.zwakalabrewery.co.za

There’s a brilliant bookshop Go for a long slow book browse followed by breakfast and a moerkoffie or a lazy lunch at the Pennefather bookshop in the main road. They’ve got a great selection of second hand books, Africana and collectibles. www.pennefather.co.za

The cheese is organic Blessed are the cheesemakers as Monty Python said. Wegraakbosch Farm produces a delicious range of totally, like totally, organic cheeses. And milk and veggies and chourico sausages. Take a tour of the farm and cheese factory and end it all with a lunch platter overlooking the blue mountains. wegraakbosch.wixsite.com/wegraakbosch/organic-dairy

The people are crazy Nice crazy. Friendly and eccentric and upbeat now that the spring is springing. Take a stroll down the main street – yes there’s only one – and meet assorted locals who are more than happy to ply you with food, hooch, craft, trinkets, plants and good conversation. And you can put unruly children in the village stocks! www.magoebasklooftourism.co.za

The scenery is incredible The Magoebaskloof area is Scenery Central. I’m talking wild mountains, thick indigenous forests, rolling endemic grasslands, happy waterfalls, chortling rivers, silver dams…

There are amazing places to stay Take your pick from farm cottages, village B&Bs, mountain hideaways and country hotels. www.limpopobookings.co.za

The pub is feckin fabulous Named after the highest peak in the area, the local pub the Iron Crown is the place for good food and cheer - try their delicious Haenertsburger. If you ring the bell inside you have to buy the whole pub a round – you have been warned!

The Ministry of Fabulousness: Putting the mmm in Mpumalanga

The Ministry of Fabulousness: Putting the mmm in Mpumalanga: We call Mpumalanga the Slowveld, You know, like the Lowveld, but sultry with extra steam and less speed. More time to explore the ancient mo...

Putting the mmm in Mpumalanga

We call Mpumalanga the Slowveld, You know, like the Lowveld, but sultry with extra steam and less speed. More time to explore the ancient mountains, scenic passes, lovely wildlife and fabulous people. Here’s my soul selection. 

High upon a White River sunset We park off on the veranda overlooking the Swartfontein Dam in the dreamy hills above White River. We have giant G&Ts and watch the sun slip sexily down the sky. When it gets dark the stars take over. We are off-the-grid, solar-powered, candlelit. We see the Milky Way in glorious detail and listen to the purr of the night. www.krugerlowveld.com

Day driving through southern Kruger The dawn breaks warm as we trundle sleepily into southern Kruger, Malelane Gate. It’s spring and there are babies everywhere. We ooh and aah. At lunch we stop and watch the baby elephants hold onto their mothers’ tails as they cross the Lower Sabie River. www.krugerpark.co.za

Looking over the Makhonjwa Mountains My heart sings at the sight of these wild green mountains on the edge of the Slowveld and Swaziland. The Barberton Mountain Lands, greenstone rocks dating from the dawn of time. Three and a half billion years, some of the oldest on earth containing evidence of life’s first forms. Geologists, scientists and boffins from NASA have been coming here for years. My best. Faints of happiness. https://www.nightjartravel.com/magazine/makhonjwa-magic

On the edge of Blyde River Canyon I drop to my knees at the sight of the Blyde River Canyon. God’s Window. Sheer green cliffs and a silver dam. Highlight of the Slowveld’s Panorama Route, the Blyde is the third biggest canyon in the world after the USA’S Grand Canyon and Namibia’s Fish River Canyon. Take a hip flask. www.mpumalanga.com

Jolling in Nelspruit We’re after a different kind of wild life now, and there’s fabulous ear candy at Die Stoep, a groovy venue at the back of a street-facing coffee shop in Sonpark Boulevard. There are pink pillars and fairy lights and the steps are painted like piano keys. We make friends with everyone and end up with hangovers. www.diestoep.co.za

Kaapeshoop on a Sunday Day trippers head up the steep pass to this eccentric misty village in the mountains. The Bohemian Groove Café is the soul spot. Great food, strong drink and live music. Kaapsehoop was once a gold rush town - for about ten minutes -  and today is famed for its wild horses and lovely walks, as well as cast of interesting bistros, bars and fabulous people. www.bohemiangroovecafe.co.za

Roadtripping the Slowveld By virtue of its geology, the Slowveld offers some of the most scenic and sexiest roads you could hope to take. We travel the Long Tom Pass, the Abel Erasmus Pass (slipping through the Strijdom Tunnels), the Saddleback Pass. We drive the Panorama Route and into the Wild Frontier and off to Mozambique, destination Maputo where spicy food and groovy people await. www.mpumalanga.com

Fabulously Trouteng, Walkersons of Dullstroom

From the gold framed portraits of the ancestors and their spaniels to the pink bubbly at noon, Walkersons is fabulously Trouteng, as I call Dullstroom, Mpumalanga’s fly-fishing capital. Famed for its honeyed grasslands and moneyed Gautengers, there’s no suffering in Trouteng - and staying at Walkersons is like visiting a fabulously decadent and somewhat eccentric grand old aunt’s country estate. Where there’s whisky on your oats in the morning and the waiters wear tartan kilts and demure women like us wonder what’s under them. Us being a media group, all too keen to be in this gentle golden valley with its silver trout dams and promise of loveliness.

Walkersons lies at the end of a pretty track reached by a dramatic descent off the tar road. The gracious stone hotel has shade trees and water features, closed porches and generous verandas. I was lucky enough to have a room with a pond right outside, which did a mean line in reflection and it occurred to me I was getting double the scenery and I immediately felt fabulous. After bubbles and lunch with the media princesses, I retired to my room and set about speed dating it. It’s been so long since I’ve been in a real grand old country hotel, and I’ve just survived my first non subtropical winter in a decade, having recently moved to the mountaintop village of Haenertsburg in Limpopo - so I went for unconscionable decadence. 

I started the pre-made fire, put on the electric blanket, ran a bubble path, lit all the candles and tried unsuccessfully to connect to the wifi. So I opened the bar, poured some wine, put on the CD player AND the TV, poured more wine and gazed longingly at the winter sun kiss the pond outside, so grateful to be warm and safe, especially warm. Repeat. Very grateful to be warm. Sounds of purring. 

When I did get onto the wifi, shortly before those pre-dinner drinks that are de rigeur at your fabulous aunt’s country estate, I posted a picture of the sun-kissed golden pond and an old friend from Betty’s Bay in the Western Cape said he knew the chef at Wakersons. So the chef was duly summonsed and he turned out to be the fabulous Adri van Wieringen who has a string of illustrious awards to his name and cooks like a dream. We princesses were exceptionally well looked after on the food front. If you’re ever in Trouteng, go to Walkersons as a day visitor just for the food. And the wine. Ok you may as well stay a few days…

And when I stumbled happily back to my room, the Turndown Service had stoked up my fire, revved up the electric blanket, scattered the room with roses and run me a bubble bath. Guess what I did?

Mbali, Ilse, myself, Dawn, Theresa and Michelle

Apart from my room, my other favourite place was Peggy’s Bar, named after Peggy de Villiers who was an early pioneer and tippler. We posed under her portrait. She photo-bombed us. Walkersons is grand but not snobby or stuffy. It’s a really friendly laid back place for a chill-out weekend.

The estate has a series of trout dams as well as ornamental dams with ducks, and lots of water features. The grasslands were wintry ochre, with busy birds and the odd lone tree. You can stroll or hike, fish or go for a massage. Or all of them. Or do nothing but purr and look at the pond’s reflections. Check out www.walkersons.co.za

The Ministry of Fabulousness: Soul Dancing, Limpopo

The Ministry of Fabulousness: Soul Dancing, Limpopo: Crooks Corner at sunset. We drink G&T and jump in the air. This is the northern Kruger, meeting of three countries South Af...

Soul Dancing, Limpopo

Crooks Corner at sunset. We drink G&T and jump in the air. This is the northern Kruger, meeting of three countries South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, intersected by the Limpopo and the Luvuvhu rivers. We talk about the early tribes that would have crossed here, then pioneers, smugglers, traders, adventurers; later the dispossessed, war refugees... www.returnafrica.com

Lanner Gorge in the rain. We each take a turn to step onto a lone look-out rock on cliff’s edge - and watch as the Levuvhu River below cuts its ancient course through Lanner Gorge towards its confluence with the Limpopo River.  It’s drizzling and the views are wild; a powerful sense of history hangs in the air...so many stories from the Pafuri Triangle. www.returnafrica.com

Kurisa Moya at dawn. Spirit of the wind. True to its name it’s been blowing all night, roof creaking, trees squeaking, bushbabies shrieking. But at dawn it’s completely still and we awake to a soft, pink day overlooking the Kudu River Valley. This is one of southern Africa’s best eco-tourism spots. Good morning beautiful Limpopo. www.krm.co.za

Leshiba Wilderness in the shower. I am in the dreaming heights of the Soutpansberg mountains in Vhembe. I fall in love with a Venda prince. He is tall and muscled; his hands cupped together invitingly. He wears nothing but a loin cloth. Out of his ear comes a shower head. Aaah, my prince is a shower sculpture at the delightful Venda Village at Leshiba; inspired by legendary artist Noria Mabasa. www.leshiba.co.za

Kings Walden under the lightning tree. We drink, eat, love, laugh, weep and wonder under the lightning tree on my ancestral farm, now a boutique hotel. The tree was struck by lightning the day my grandmother died and it still stands silver-proud, an antenna connecting us to the ancestors.  www.kingswalden.co.za

Klaserie River at dawn. A whole lot of us get up at dawn and watch the river turn a steamy salmon pink. We are friends together, from around the world for one dawn and a few days in the deep heart of Limpopo’s oldest and one of its biggest private reserves. www.klaseriecamps.com

The Kruger on a soulful self-drive. We take a gentle jaunt from Orpen to Phalaborwa gate via the Timbavati River Road, one of the prettiest and most geographically diverse routes in the park. We crest the hill and there she is – behold the Timbavati River. Hippos and crocs warming up, we look out for leopard but don’t see any, damn. ww.krugerpark.co.za

Zwakala Retreat on the lawn. We eat food and drink Zwakala Beer. We are gathered in friendship, love and kin on a golden afternoon in the Magoebaskloof mountains. The sun beams us up. We are surrounded by rivers and waterfalls, forests, indigenous kloofs and mountain views. www.zwakalaretreat.co.za

Wolkberg Wilderness with a view.  I gaze longingly onto the purple blue mountains of the northern Drakensberg mountains, spine of the massive Wolkberg Wilderness area. Thick indigenous forests, dancing waterfalls, home to many a river source and mountain adventure. www.magoebasklooftourism.co.za

Mystic River, Vagina Flumine

“Hippo on the left”, said my guide Kaley.

We were in canoes, paddling gently down the wild and ancient Kafue River in deepest Zambia. Kaley and I in one canoe; my friend and colleague Sally and her guide in another. 

The Kafue is big and long and flows for nearly a thousand kilometres through Zambia before joining the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe. 

She – this river is definitely a she – is the lifeblood of the Kafue National Park, Zambia’s oldest and biggest.  And very far flung. It took us an hour and a half by air charter, an hour and half by road in a 4x4 and fifteen minutes by boat to get to the remote Kaingu Lodge from Lusaka. A soul spot. Deep soul. 

Now here we were, vulnerable little humans, paddling her ancient waters, trying to hug the banks, dodge the boulders, avoid the hippos. After a bit of initial canoeing in circles, you know, trying to sync paddling and steering.

“Hippo on the left”, said Kaley again, and then: “No that’s not a hippo. Come, paddle faster, let’s go see”, and we paddled furiously towards this scene…

A young male puku – think chunky version of our impala – leapt into the river on the left and started swimming. A massive crocodile leapt into the river from the right and in a few powerful strokes and one mighty snap of the jaws caught the puku and dragged it under.

Snap.

A wriggle and some splashing. Some bubbles.

We canoed over the bubbles.  Kaley and I had a moment of being mutually startled by the life and death scene we had just witnessed, aware that we just happened to be there and see a moment that existed outside of our humanity. "I feel sad for the puku", I said to Kaley, who said the puku must have been chased into the water by a predator, perhaps a lion or a cheetah. I felt happy for the croc though, so prehistorically reptilian-crocodilian, soon to be tummy-full.

And when I looked back, the She River had closed over again. Croc one; puku nought; life moves on, birth, death, life, flow...

Vagina flumine. Flowing vagina.That’s what an old friend commented on this photograph I posted this pic of the Kafue River recently; the metaphor of river as erotic, female, primal, flowing, cyclical. Birth, life, death. It got me thinking about my old friend Thecla and it got me thinking about river porn (snuff in this case) and the wild wet mysterious place I had just been.