Driving along the R536 between Sabie and Hazy-view, you’ll be struck by the names of the farms and businesses that are like character sketches of the area: Bushbaby Valley Lodge, Mahogany Hill Cottage, Mountain Creek Lodge and Aan De Vliet Resort (meaning “on the stream”).
About 5km from Perry’s Bridge Trading Post and Tourism Centre in Hazyview, you pass the Summerfields Rose Retreat & Spa, Summerhill Prep School and Sabie Sunrise Farm – an apt name for a place where shorts and flip-flops can be worn all-year round. The Idle & Wild chalets remind you of what can be expected in the heat of summer: balmy to blistering days that might leave European tourists feeling lazy, but not the snakes, cicadas or thunderstorms.
The area had 929mm of rain in February last year, of which 223mm came down on the 10th, flooding the Sabie River and washing away sections of the road. A giant sinkhole 20km from Hazyview prevented travellers from accessing Sabie via this road during Platteland’s visit. The road was reopened in December.
“Our cricket team had a match in Sabie that week. We had to take a detour via the Swartfontein road near Klipkopjes Dam. What should have been a 30-minute drive took a little over an hour,” explains Summerhill Prep School principal, Cheryl Calmyer.
Cheryl moved from Uplandsfacing an empty nest, so I kept an eye open for a leadership post and a new challenge here in the Lowveld.”
