Big Flavours in the Klein Karoo
This is turning out to be a splendid day. The gusting north-west wind here in Stanford did scary stuff to our roof sheets last night, and then ripped out our landline for good measure, but I am leaving it all behind for a visit to Sanbona Wildlife Reserve in the Klein Karoo.
The Klein Karoo is one of my favourite winter haunts, what with its mild days, and colder evenings for snuggling up to a fire. Bliss. And the drive to the 58 000-hectare Big Five reserve is just as heavenly, not far from Montagu along the R62, in the direction of Barrydale. We enter the reserve at the main gate to get to Gondwana Family Lodge, one of the three luxury lodges here (there’s also an Explorer Camp).
It’s one of those lovely, sunny, winter days and the large, glass doors of the lodge are wide open. Fynbos, renosterveld and succulent Karoo vegetation flow right in, blurring the boundaries between building and landscape. The main building’s thatched roof blends in perfectly with the koppie behind it, but the feature that pulls me right back to the beginnings of this ancient landscape is the stacked, drystone walls, a tribute to the skilled artisans of this traditional Karoo craft.
The lunch service subsides
