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.
For a Durbanite like me, the “Cape trip” is probably part of your travel history – something you feel called to do every few years or so. Mostly, you drive the roughly 1,800km each way, because – magical as Cape Town is – it’s as much about the journey as it is about the destination.
Durban to Cape Town via the Free State; we’ll be driving home via the coastal Garden Route, Port Elizabeth, East London and the former Transkei
A week before heading to France for the summer, I surprised Roy on his birthday with a three-night getaway to the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, just a 90-minute drive from Umhlanga Rocks and Durban.
Just between you and me, I wasn’t sure how welcome it was – to start with, anyway.
My man seems quite content to while away the days on our balcony, occasionally lifting his eyes from his Kindle to survey the Indian Ocean, assess the shipping situation, contemplate the lighthouse, or call me from one of my various pursuits to admire a pod of passing dolphins.
Durban’s not just about sun and surf – it’s also less than a two-hour drive from an agricultural hinterland that bristles with dozens of more-or-less-chi-chi farm stalls, handicrafts and cottage industries, craft breweries, hostelries, spas, cafés and restaurants. This bucolic wonderland is called the Midlands Meander, and what better destination for a couple of nights’ R&R with my sister Dale from London and our mutual BFF Julie?
At Rawdon’s Hotel, Balgowan – the home of Nottingham Road Brewery
Day One – of pork crackling, dental disasters and craft ales
Can you even remember what we did before TripAdvisor and Booking.com? – and one has to wonder, how did small, good hostelries get the promotion they deserved? A case in point is 44 on Ennis, where we spent one night en route to a wedding in Modimolle (previously Nylstroom).
Though it’s my first visit to Ermelo – and probably the last, to be honest – I do have a link to the area. My maternal grandmother, Christina Painter, née Louwrens (“Stienie” to her peers, “Ma” to us), grew up on a farm in nearby Amsterdam in the early 1900s, along with 12 older siblings, before her parents retired to the small town of Newcastle in what is now KwaZulu-Natal. So I was keen on visiting Amsterdam (around 77km from Ermelo), but our B&B host, Peter Maherry, most earnestly advised us not to; it has a church, a liquor store and one stop street, he warned; “You will be disappointed.”
This is the only photograph I have of my maternal grandmother as a young woman; she grew up on a farm in Amsterdam, near Ermelo. This was taken circa 1931 with my grandfather, Jack Painter
Peter and his wife, Nikki, built the place themselves about six-and-a-half years ago. It’s a pleasing hotchpotch of pebbles – lots of pebbles! – slate, tile and glass mosaic; she’s an artist, and all the paintings are her work.
Apart from the food, it’s the extraordinary intimacy of Peter and Nikki’s service that makes 44 on Ennis so memorable. After pre-dinner drinks with several other guests in front of a cosy fire in the courtyard, the couple cook and serve everything themselves from a short but interesting menu that changes every two days.
Sanele (right) came to 44 on Ennis as an accountant, but soon developed a passion for the kitchen – and for customer service, says PeterThere’s nothing like a sundowner G&T in front of a crackling fire
Eating
My super-thick fillet of beef tenderloin (R189, US$14) is cooked directly on the courtyard fire along with its coal-baked jacket potato, and comes perfectly medium rare, just as ordered. Roy’s kingklip* (R220) is baked to just-done perfection in the West Coast oven – similar to a pizza oven, and built around a 50-gallon drum – that is Peter’s latest baby. Both dishes come with a gorgeously rich tagine of mixed vegetables. (Other main course options include an innovative rooibos-smoked sole, and flame-grilled prawns.)
*Kingklip is a distinctive local fish, a member of the eel family, that was virtually fished out for a couple of decades before it made its recent comeback to sustainability
All the artwork is by Nikki
I photograph food only in daylight – it tends to look drecky otherwise, unless you’ve got proper lighting equipment. So you’ll have to be content with this breakfast photo (below): poached eggs, bobotie (a traditional South African-Malay dish of minced meat, onions and breadcrumbs flavoured with dried fruit and spices and baked with a creamy egg topping) and baked beans with fresh basil. Splendid!
For breakfast, you “build your own feast” – mine is poached eggs, bobotie, and baked beans with fresh basil
Accommodation
A big, comfortable room with two beds; perfect for the partners of blanket-hoggers
Our spacious room (number 4) had two double beds, a proper wardrobe, two comfortable armchairs, a desk and a shower-room. The free Wi-Fi worked well, including in our room. Maintenance could be improved, however: non-functional electric adaptors fixed or replaced; noisy plumbing attended to, and loose tap fittings made secure. Air-conditioning would be nice, and we’d also suggest thicker curtains to block out the bright security lights outside.
Value
Excellent: R625 (US$45) for the room; R750 for our G&Ts, two courses each and a nice bottle of red; and R75 for two breakfasts!
If you cannot finish your enormous fillet tenderloin, never mind – Lyla will have the rest for breakfast
Mkuze in northern KwaZulu-Natal is the sort of place you might not choose to stop, but the decision was made for us. Our rental BMW’s info screen was warning of low tyre pressure – Roy suspected a slow leak – and we still had about 400km of N2 to go before our overnight stop in Ermelo.
Roy wasn’t particularly keen on driving down the main (read only) street of the bustling metropolis of KwaMbonambi – and one can’t really blame him – but he did, and even stopped for me to snap a couple of photos.
A highlight was the roadside barber, wielding his tools under a shelter of transparent pink plastic, but I didn’t want to intrude my camera on the customer in such an intimate moment.
