It’s a 335km drive from Graaff-Reinet to Prince Albert in the Central Karoo, where we were to stay for two nights. Apart from it being famously karaktervol (full of character), the main attraction for us was my old school friend Linda and her husband André, who 14 years ago retired to a smallholding on the edge of Prince Albert.
“Do stop for lunch or tea at Sophie’s Choice in Willowmore,” Linda texted me, so we did. Below is Sophia with Roy, in the gorgeously eclectic antiques store and restaurant she’s been running for 13 years.
“The Karoo has been good to me,” she says, and that’s evident from the number of customers, including international tourists from the bus that’s parked nearby. Her shop is is a regular stop on its itinerary, and the tour guide phones in the apple tart order ahead.
No doubt Sophia has been very good to the Karoo, too.
A Royal Welcome
More vintage glory awaited us at Prince Albert Country Store and Stay on the main Church Street. Our hosts Colleen and William Penfold “retired” here from Cape Town 13 years ago, and, I’d guess, have possibly never worked harder in their lives. (Colleen ran Allison’s, a top florist and vintage shop in Cape Town; William had a business in building restoration, and his first job here was to restore the town’s landmark NGK church.)
Prince Albert Country Stay is a beautifully run and obviously popular place. It was full house on our first night, when we slept in the charming Library room; for our second, we were upgraded to its more spacious neighbour, the Lady Chatterley room.
Over-achieving Pensioners
The town seems full of interesting and successful people who have chosen to retire to this little Karoo town – not that they actually retire once they get there!
Our friends are a case in point. During their 14 years here, Linda has taken on all sorts of community roles, including running the local newspaper, working in the art gallery, organising the annual leesfees or reading festival for five consecutive years, and serving on the local council, currently as deputy mayor. (I can only imagine how demanding that must be, as she’s as modest and unassuming as ever.)
After a drink at their Karoo-style home in Pastorie Street, we had dinner together at the enclosed alfresco courtyard of Jeremy Fremantle’s Real Food Company.
Jeremy is another over-achieving retiree.During the summer months, he cooks up a delicious and varied tapas menu. (In winter, he takes it inside.) An advocate of slow food and minimal-intervention cooking, Jeremy also offers cookery classes and has teamed up with a local cycling company to do gourmet cycling experiences.
Prince Albert Gallery not only represents an excellent selection of local artists – and having worked at the gallery in the past, Linda knows a lot of them – but is also home to the Gallery Café upstairs, where we had dinner on our second and last night in town.
Here, owner-chef Brent Phillips-White, another talented Prince Albert entrepreneur, serves up diverse dishes such as Asian-inspired fishcakes, rare Norwegian salmon, Karoo lamb and Indonesian peanut stew, all accompanied with veggie and salad ingredients from Brent’s own garden.
Saturday in Prince Albert
While William sautéed breakfast mushrooms in a large pan, I took my camera for a walk up Church Street before the day got too hot… the forecast high was 38 degrees Centigrade.
Prince Albert’s little market (markie, in Afrikaans) was doing good business with local meat and fresh produce, aromatic coffee, breakfasts, pancakes and more.
Here we met climate change specialist Jean-Luc Mélice-Mulders (above), who has a house in Prince Albert but works mainly in Paris. What did he make of the sweltering weather? The world is doomed, he declared.“All the tipping points have been passed. Take a lover, enjoy yourself… the world we know is coming to an end.”
These engaging children had just completed the Saturday morning parkrun, Linda told me, and so were entitled to a treat at the market. After having done two parkruns, they also get a free movie ticket; after three, a free pair of tekkies, or sports shoes, all courtesy of a generous local resident. Don’t you love this story?
Next door to the market is the Fransie Pienaar Museum, in what was for some time the local hospital. Today it is presided over by the granddaughter of the original Fransie (1897-1987), a notable collector of all sorts of things.
Voted the best small museum in the Western Cape, one of the highlights for me was its touching account of the 1960s apartheid-driven forced removals in Prince Albert.
The sign above reads: “Visit the Museum shop for books, witblits and more!” The museum has a licence to distill witblits (white lightning), a South African version of moonshine, and to sell it for fundraising purposes. Now, that’s the sort of creative thinking that makes Prince Albert thrive.
Later, there was the Currie Cup rugby final to be watched at Linda and André’s, and the Sharks’ 17-12 victory over Western Province to be celebrated with a glass of Simonsig Kaapse Vonkel. Cheers!
