My room was incredible. I had never seen anything similar. I don’t know how to explain so I will just quickly include a picture for you to see.

My room @ Cleopatra Mountain Farmhouse

We were treated to a 6 course dinner. Each and every course was a feast for the eye and a treat for the taste buds. I like  their motto: we’re not a health farm so yes we use butter, cream and all the other good stuff. I couldn’t agree more. After dinner we were kind of exhausted from all the eating and the only thing left to do was get to our room and rest. Another thing I liked was that breakfast was served from 9am so no need to get up early and lots of time to enjoy the birds in the garden and de-stress. Perfect! Breakfast was a 3 course affair…This place just gets 10 out of 10 for EVERYTHING! It’s an experience not to be missed and a good getaway for any special occasion which of course can be any day of the year, really.

Entrance to the room

Lounge area for afternoon tea

Clarens is a cute little village that unfortunately is already getting a lot of visitors, I guess I’m not the only one that enjoys the vibe… It had been a while since I had been there and boy, is there a lot of development going on! So perhaps you should  try to go before it really becomes a popular tourist destination. How to describe Clarens? Hm, beautifully situated, surrounded by mountains, lot of art galleries, lovely restaurants with fresh farm style food, worthwhile at least a lunch stop!

Continuing from Clarens we drove through the Golden Gate National Park. This is one of the most stunning routes in South Africa and not over-run by tourists, yet. Drive past the impressive Sterkfonteindam and then end up in the absolutely wonderful Klein Switzerland Hotel. I normally don’t really like the bigger hotels but this is a very pleasant exception with EXCELLENT service, very spacious and beautiful rooms, super friendly staff and my Dad and I had one of the best fillets of beef EVER! WHAT a treat!! This is a great place to take the ENTIRE family because you can be sure everyone has a good time. There are lots of activities for kids or you can just relax on your deck and enjoy the stunning Drakensberg views. Highly recommended!!

View from the rooms

A lot of people are scared off by travel agents, NOT to go into Lesotho. I’m saying: you’re missing out if you’re visiting this part of the world and skip Lesotho. It is a beautiful country and there are a few places that you can reach via tarred roads so don’t be scared and just go. The Lesotho people are lovely and they need the tourists. Lesotho is about 5 times poorer than South Africa.

The place I often go to is called Malealea, a lodge and pony trek centre. Only the last 7 km is horrible to drive but I did it with my Hyundai Getz and made it without a problem so again, just go, be careful but go.

The Malealea Development Trust supports many villages in the area of Malealea. Kids can apply for funds to go to high school, a computer centre is build, a pre-primary school is operational and Arts & Crafts made by the villagers can  be bought in the lodge. The horses are owned by the locals so when you go for a ride you directly support a local family. The kitchen is run by Mama Agnes and bar man Bob makes sure you don’t go thursty. Every evening there’s a local choir singing as well as a band. I will also post some videos on youtube at the extraordinarytravel channel for you to check. It’s such a lovely place and I wish more people can experience it.

Malealea Choir

Agricultural class under a tree

School boys

For a long time I’ve been wanting to take them to Malealea in Lesotho and now was the time. It was their fourth time in South Africa so time to step away from the Garden Route and wine lands and take them to REAL Africa. Driving to Lesotho from Cape Town in 1 day is a bit ambitious (although I have done it!!) so we planned to stay overnight in Graaff Reinet. There was a guesthouse that I had already send some guests and I still needed to check it out, Andries Stockenstrom, a 4 star guesthouse. They’re well known for their culinary dinners, just something for me! My expectations were very high and sorry to say but I was very much disappointed. First of all it was 42 degrees when we arrived and I couldn’t wait to jump into the sparkling pool. It was green and dirty so no go. Dinner was served from about 19h30 and that was the only time that we actually saw the host / chef / owner. He explained the menu with much a-do but when my Karoo Lamb choppie arrived I could hardly find it on my plate. I don’t think I had ever seen such a small chop and half of it was fat. Unfortunately, no one came to check up on us so it was a bit difficult to send the plate back or complain unless I would have gotten up and go to the kitchen myself. The starter, a beetroot / onion / garlich soup was o-k but in 42 degrees I think a chef should anticipate and serve a chilled soup which would have been very possible with this recipe. Anyway, ZAR 275 for this 4 course menu was WAY to much. Anywhere else in South Africa I can enjoy a top notch lunch or dinner for this amount of money and don’t leave the table feeling hungry. So very sorry to say but Andries Stockenstrom, you were a bit of a disappointment food wise, service wise and pool wise. Maybe I just caught you at a bad day and was the heat also too much for you…

Both Ajax Cape Town and Santos supporters proudly supported their clubs and had the time of their life. Premier Helen Zille spoke before the game and thanked the public for making this day a reality: “Ke Nako. Our time has come. “This is the most beautiful stadium, in the most beautiful city with the most beautiful people in the world.

20.000 tickets for this test match were sold, which is half the capacity of the stadium. Yesterday’s game was the first of 3 “dry runs’ at the Cape Town Stadium ahead of the WC. On 6 February 2010 there will be a rugby match that will cater for 40.000 rugby fans. The full capacity is 68.000

Morning! I just come back from a short walk on Hout Bay Beach. How I love this place! It MUST be one of the most beautiful places in the world and definitely in South Africa. The lovely bay with the breathtaking Chapmans Peak Drive on one side and the quaint harbour on  the other side.The Harbour is still a working harbour and one can eat the freshest Fish & Chips at ‘Fish on the Rocks’ or ‘Snoekies’. For a bit more sophistacated meal you can go to Mariner’s Wharf. 45 minute boattrips from the Harbour take you to seal island where you can watch thousands of playful seals. Another attraction of Hout Bay is The World of Birds, one of the biggest bird parks in Africa. Very well set up and lovely to spend a few hours.

Restaurants and deli’s not to be missed in Hout Bay:

La Cucina: The best breakfast and lunch buffet EVER (and the friendliest staff)
Kitima @ Kronendal: Delicious Asian cuisine, wonderful bar area and SUPERB cocktails
The Chapmans Peak Hotel: Old Time favorite and best Calamari in the world!

The hiking trail takes you all around the Peninsula. The first day we choose to do the long stretch, which is about 20 km. It begins with a bit of up and down but most of the trail is quite flat and long stretches of soft sand do give you a good work out for you calves…For the first 3 hours we didn’t see a single soul. To me, to spend the day hiking like that is the absolute best. At ‘Hoek van Bobbejaan’ (= Baboon’s Corner), we sat down on the rocks and had our lunch break. We even did a little power snooze. There were a few fishermen as well but that was all. We arrived at the beautifully situated Erica cottage at around 16h15 so we hiked for about 7 hours, including 1 hour of breaks. The last bit up to the Cottage was the steepest part of the trail!! So much for that!! Our fellow hikers, who started with the 10 km stretch had already arrived and soon we were opening up bottles of wine, the braai was lit and we had a ‘lekker kuier aand’, topped of with serious amounts of chocolate. I always prefer to sleep outside when possible and my friend thought the same so we put our matresses outside and slept under the beautiful stars. However,  the wind picked up terribly and we didn’t have a great sleep at all. The next day we started hiking again at 7am and thought we could ‘easily’ be finished by 11. Jeez, we were SO wrong! We struggled hey! WoW! One mountain after the other. The first 5 km were quite easily but then we had to conquer: Kanonkop, Paulsberg, Die Boer & Judas Peak. I was so exhausted I even fell once, luckily soft. We hardly took any breaks and were back at the main gate by noon, completely exhausted and looking forward to a cold Coke!!

Bit of history…
The Cape of Good Hope was discovered by Bartholomew Dias and his crew in 1488. However, artifacts from middens found in the area show that the region was known to and utilised by man intermittently since the Early Stone Age period some 600.000 years ago.

Bit of Flora & Fauna..
The flora is typical of the southwestern Cape Floral Region, Fynbos (= fine bush), an area that has the highest level of species richness amongst the world’s temperate regions and which rivals even tropical rainforests in diversity. Just so you know this is paradise for botanists. Over 1080 species of plants have been recorded. Fynbos is nutrient poor and cannot support large numbers of game animals. Nevertheless we ran into some Eland, Bontebok, Ostriches and obviously Baboons. There are about 250 bird species in the 7750 hectare area.

For bookings: www.tmnp.co.za

Carne Restaurant in Keerom Street, CBD, Cape Town. WoW!! For the REAL carnivore what a treat! Everything was perfect, venue, menu, waiter (we love you Mike, we do!), except…..1 little thing, the seats of the chairs were quite small. Now, well, I’m not exactly a size petite but I think more people might have that feeling.

Hm, went back to ‘Carne’ last week and again had a great piece of meat. This time  the seat didn’t feel that small.. Hmmm. Last week it was extremely hot outside and Carne was perfectly cool. What bliss!! We’ll be back many more times..

The next morning we didn’t really wake up till about 8 which for me is very very late. I normally get up around 6am. So only just in time for breakfast, we ordered it to the room. They served it in the garden. Perfect end of a short but relaxing visit to one of the most stunning places around Cape Town.

Make sure not to miss it when you visit. Constantia is the oldest wine producing area and has some fabulous estates like Constantia Uitsig, Groot Constantia, Buitenverwachting and Steenberg. Only 20 minutes from Cape Town!

www.constantia-uitsig.com