From the turn-off through the gates of the West Coast National Park, the road dips and rolls through fynbos and sky before opening up to a bottle-green lagoon dotted with pink flamingos and houseboats.
Our destination lies on the other side of a locked gate and down a winding dirt track. Kraalbaai is a small pocket of private land with a smattering of holiday homes on the edge of the Langebaan lagoon. The story of this settlement goes back centuries – to the 1780s, when stock farmers from Franschhoek used to bring their cattle here for winter grazing.
The Malan’s house, like most in Kraalbaai, is gratifyingly unpretentious: simple brick and cladding, set lightly into the indigenous bush. A wild fig tree towers over the entrance, rescued shipping buoys hanging from its branches.
SACRED SPACE
Coffee is served on the deck with its comfortable sofas and crackling firepit. The view is a watercolour painting with shimmering streaks of teal and sage weeping into the horizon.
Every year the Malan and van der Vyver families – Ralie and Ronel are sisters – gathered here for Christmas. Thinus Malan, a former farmer, recently became the warden of Kraalbaai and he can’t hide his delight that he and Ralie now live here permanently. For the rest of the clan, the “sacred space” remains a beloved
