My phone pings as I turn off the dirt road and pass through the elegant white gateposts. “Gone pig hunting. Door open.”
A narrow bridge crosses the Berg River. The water is dipped in the reflection of a candyfloss sunset. The farmstead is achingly beautiful in the long shadows of the dying day. Towering blue gums, rambling outbuildings and a shimmering white manor house with light pouring from its windows.
The farm Kersefontein, nestled between Hopefield and Velddrif, has a colonial history stretching back to the 1700s. The first deed described the farm as a “zeker Veepost” (certain cattle post) and it was precisely for this purpose that Martin Melck first bought it. Two hundred and fifty years later, it not only remains a working farm, but is also still in the hands of the same family.
Julian Melck (he refers to
