The sky was too low and the air had lost its sparkle. When I lived in Europe I used to feel sometimes like I couldn’t breathe. So much sky, so much air, so much room to move. There is so much space in our back garden it almost blows your mind. The guide informs us that a new species of plant was recently discovered right here on these slopes. In this new world we inhabit, water is a scarce resource. It’s looking to be a dry summer and our guide explains that they’ll have to source water from the Breede river. Higher and higher we climb, past pin-cushions and strange rock formations and dams that need replenishing but our rainy season has come and gone. I wonder what animals roamed here before the people came. The sun is low on the horizon and the protea and fynbos have that otherworldly golden glow, like the world is steeped in syrup. A pair of giraffe startle at the sound of our vehicle. The jeep climbs up and up a steep, bumpy road. And, breathe.īefore dinner we are taken on a game drive up into the Waaihoek and Slanghoek Mountain ranges. Also, journalists drink a lot of wine and anyone who does this is my friend. Since I went freelance I rarely hang out with journalists and it’s a joy being with kin again folk who understand why the word ‘nestle’ should be banned from every travel piece, ever. Our intuitive host clocks this and makes a quick itinerary change so that instead of a garden walk we are settled on comfy couches beside a pool David Hockney couldn’t have done better and plied with cold Bosjes rosé and tasty butternut wraps. I didn’t know there was such a thing, but I could see that it wasn’t far from Worcester (which I only just discovered, thanks to David Kramer, is pronounced ‘Worcester’ and not ‘Vorcester’) and I definitely know Worcester because my friend, Leslie, comes from there and there’s a road in that town called de la Bat which makes my other friend and I laugh because it reminds us of a trip we took together to Greece, the details of which can never be divulged.īy the time we’ve arrived and done a tour of Bosjes’s extraordinary primary school (built by the Bosjes Trust for the children of the farm-workers and which is so modern and sustainable and lovely it makes the modern, lovely schools of Scandinavia look sad), we are veritably perishing of thirst and words. Just look at that light.Įarlier in the week I tried to find out exactly where Bosjes was, but all I could find was the Breedekloof Valley. Who woulda thunk South Africa would end up the safer place to be? Our game drive up high up into the majestic Waaihoek and Slanghoek mountains. Late at night, just before I turn off the light, I scare the daylights out of myself by asking Google what the chances really are of a third world war. This is especially true lately, with Hitler aka Putin blowing up gas lines all over the show and Europe entering a massive energy crisis.
Nothing good ever comes of traveling beyond hospital bend (unless it’s to go to cafe Ohana or visit my friend, Philippa). Plus, I’ve always had a mental block about traveling beyond hospital bend.
Over the past few years (thanks, in part, to Covid) I’ve discovered that it’s not actually necessary to ever leave my bedroom. ‘When last were you at Bosjes?’ my friend, Keith, asks me as we cruise along the N1, and he’s surprised when I say never, but it’s not surprising.
Inspired by a psalm, it was designed to create the impression of a bird floating on water. The Bosjes Kapel (or chapel) is one of the most recognisable architectural feats in SA. The Victorian bath was outside on the deck, and when you went for breakfast under a giant Frangipani tree somebody walked behind you and raked away your footsteps. From your bed, you looked out over the coffee-coloured river and fell asleep to the sound of hippos splashing in the shallows. Once I stayed at a game lodge on the Zambezi where the bedroom had only three walls. I was sent on a luxury cruise to Australia when I was too young and green to know that my cabin, the size of a modest hotel suite, was huge by maritime standards. You’d be back by 6pm to go to the next thing. There was so much money in print media it was nothing to fly to Joburg for lunch. In the old days (how did the nineties become the old days?) glamorous travel was part of the deal, and made up for the terrible wages we journalists got paid. Independent travel for stories, sure, but not the old school kind where you meet in a hotel for drinks and then get driven somewhere on a bus. My travel writer friend, Keith Bain, and I going on an adventure (actually, he does this kind of thing every five minutes, but I was pretty excited to get out of the house).
0 kommentar(er)
