Tag: Braai

Road trip South Africa

Part 2 : Into the wilderness

We’ve set up camp in Wilderness for 10 days, and those 10 days were filled with mini road trips, as this is prime sight-seeing country, where mountains, forests, lakes, rivers and the ocean meet. This is where birds, rural coffeeshops, world-class restaurants, scenic dirt roads, mountain fynbos, Knysna Yellowwood forests all shout out for the traveller’s attention and where my daily ‘braaivleis vuur’ beckons to give flavour to those lamb chops Appie so lovingly packed.

As many of my Bonn based non-South African friends will probably confirm by now, having good quality meat and a decent ‘braai’ is very high on my list of quality time and soul finding activities. It’s not without good reason that the licking flames of a wood fire is often referred to as the bush television. As part of my initial trip planning I contacted Appie, a farmer and owner of Boeteka Padstal (32°30”08.83’S and 22°33”41.09’E) 18km outside of Beaufort West on the N12 towards Oudtshoorn and I ordered half a Karoo lamb, cut and prepared to my order, plus some prime T-bone steaks, boerewors and a Kudu fillet for a special planned dinner. ‘Baie dankie Appie, ons het soos konings ge-eet’. Check my next post which will include some time in Addo National Park, for feedback on Appie’s Kudu fillet recipe.

‘Diederik’ Cuckoo
Greater double collared sunbird

Ten days in Wilderness promised to be pure bliss, and yes it is such an incredible blissful place, it is actually spelt with a capital W. Wilderness or wildlands, according to Wikipedia are natural environments on earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity. This is not quite true. The Wilderness we were based at is the quaint anchor (pun intended) town in the Garden Route which nowadays provide abundant modernised human modifications such as restaurants and cafés. Wilderness is even more a prime destination for it’s natural splendour of forests, lakes, mountains, birdlife and ocean. Within an easy day’s travel, you have access to diverse environments, which includes the awesome Swartbergpas, Meiringspoort and Klein Karoo to the north and the Knysna forest, town and lagoon to the east, plus the lakes and Sedgefield with its weekly Farmer’s Market in between.

Please play the video

The Sedgefield market, though crowded and busy, is always a charming stop where I love to stroll, explore, smell, hear, see, taste and experience the variety of delights it has to offer. Here you can enjoy many wonderful products from fresh farm produce to samoosas, vetkoek, coffee, beer to biltong, (even) bratwurst, pannekoek and sweets while enjoying either the local Cape music, the new street children choir or the local hippy singing all the cool blues, rock and country from days gone by. The Sedgefield ‘markie’ does have one major disadvantage though. I tend to get stuck there enjoying the music sometimes to the annoyance of the rest of my travel party. It’s also an added pleasure when you bump into an old friend whom you’ve last seen in 2011, before moving abroad, ‘nè Lydia?’

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About Belgium; the Battle, the Bulge, the Beer and the Braai

Belgium was never particularly high on my list. I’ve always loved the relaxed passion of the Mediterranean nations, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Southern France; the language and ‘joy de vivre’ of France and I was naturally intrigued by the Afrikaans heritage from the Netherlands. To my layman’s understanding of Belgium and Luxembourg they were sort of the mix that wondered whether they were French, Dutch or German, not excelling at one of them, yet thriving on their political stance as home base of the EU. Last year’s trip, (see Summer in the sombre ‘The Somme’) to Flanders was the beginning of my enlightenment, but having spent a magnificent six days over Easter in the Belgian Ardenne, opened my eyes and made me realise that Belgium was a full longed and proper travel destination where you need time to meander, read, listen and just sit around to observe. It is rich in history (not all of it is good though), culture, engineering and finesse. Belgium is sort of my new Number One – sorry Jacob.

We were based in a gîte just outside of Bastogne called Savy555 (find Christine on Booking.com – I recommend that) with a cosy fireplace for the relaxed evenings, a nice ‘stoep’ outside with stunning views over the spacious lawns towards the duck pond end. To perfect the amenities, there is a small braai for the good weather dinners I prepared.

Braai ≠ barbeque nor grill, but for clarity’s sake, let’s use those synonyms if you’re not South African

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