Innehållsförteckning för January 2022 från Getaway

(Depending on Covid-19 restrictions) RED MEN TRAIL RUN 8 January Start the new year the right way with a trail run through the Outeniqua, starting and finishing at Herold Wines. Choose from a 5km fun run, a 12km or an 18km route and enjoy a well deserved picnic lunch and wine tasting afterwards. Fun run entry: R80 12km and 18km: R310 entryninja.com ATTAKWAS EXTREME 15 January South Africa’s toughest extreme one-day mountain bike race is back to test mind, body and machine. This adventure winds through the desert and mountains of the Klein Karoo, finishing along the beautiful Garden Route coast. Attakwas Extreme: 121km Attakwas Half: 52km atta.co.za ULTIMATE BEVERAGE EXPERIENCE 27–29 January Hosted by the Cape Town International Convention Centre, the Ultimate Beverage Experience showcases South Africa’s finest locally…

Sugar cane is everywhere in KZN, something I discover less than an hour after landing in Durban. Driving north towards Zululand, stray pieces of plant matter fly through the air, an occasional leaf fluttering across my windscreen. A couple of cars ahead I spot the culprit – a large truck whose open trailer carries something that looks a lot like dead branches. Suddenly these trucks are everywhere, carrying what turns out to be freshly harvested sugar cane up and down the N2 highway. It is a time-sensitive task. Sugar cane is a seriously perishable product, its high sugar content causing it to start fermenting within minutes. This goes a long way to explaining why rum distilleries arenʼt found throughout the country like gin-makers or craft brewers. Surprisingly though, the province…

2003, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. ʻHappy days,ʼ says Colin Bristow as he passes me the airsick bag and flies into a cloud somewhere over Zim. I am temporarily insane. Who else chugs heavy anti-malaria tablets with a half-bottle of home-grown tequila, scarfs a serious breakfast and goes flying in a little Cessna 210 at noon, when thereʼs nothing up there but tatty modern-day pterodactyls, bad-news thermals and a bush pilot with evil intentions? This hell in my head begins the day before at home in Joburg. We have just returned from the Karoo with a couple of bottles of Agava Spirit, a sharp liquor distilled outside Graaff-Reinet in a huge white hangar. The stuff is so popular that theyʼre exporting barrels of it to Australians, who are mixing it into their Outback…

I once rescued a christening cake from the cliff of kitsch when the baker (bless her soul) decided to smear the whole thing with bright-blue icing. It was for a baby boy, but still. Weʼre long past colour-coding for kids and no child deserves to be photographed with blue cheeks on their dedication day. And boy, did it stain; my hands and fingernails took on a translucent blue hue as I peeled back layers of fake blue icing. When the cake was finally saved, my hands looked frostbitten and bruised. The colour blue is rare in food, which makes it an interesting choice for artificial colouring. Thereʼs no actual flavour on which to base a bright-blue cake. No mental blueprint that says ʻEat me! Iʼm fun and safe and taste like…ʼ…

Carrie Hampton AIN’T NO MAUN HIGH ENOUGH (P 86) ʻAre you the troublemaker?ʼ asked a small girl as Carrie arrived at a guest house in Knysna. Trouble maker… travel writer… easily confused. Still, out of the mouth of babes! Carrie specialises in writing about southern and east Africa safaris. After visiting more than 250 safari lodges, and writing coffee table books, guide books and hundreds of travel articles, she got her social media name when a British friend exclaimed: ʻYou are such a safari tart!ʼ Follow her on Instagram @safari_tart and see her portfolio on carriehamptontravelwriter.com Obie Oberholzer CRAZY, COLOURFUL CUBA (P 36) Obieʼs photographic career began when, at the age of 10, he took a picture that straightened the leaning tower of Pisa in the frame and made the…

A week-long stay for two at the Bayview Hotel in Plett worth R17 750 ‘Thank you Getaway for rewarding me with such an amazing prize! I have only been to Plett once and have only been to the ocean a few times over the last five or so years, and to be doing it in such luxury is just so exciting! Thank you.’ – Jonathan Jacobs ‘What a delightful surprise to learn that I’d won a week-long stay in Plettenberg, thanks to the Bayview Hotel and Getaway magazine. I look forward to participating in the recommended activities made by the hotel team and allowing myself downtime. Thank you once again.’ – Cheryl Moodley…

Rum isn’t the only beverage that’s crafted in KZN. For “crop to cup” coffee, check out Beaver Creek Estate just outside Port Edward. You can join a full tour with tasting, grab coffee and cake, or just buy a bag of beans to take home. It’s not exactly prime grape-growing country, but there are vineyards in KZN, too. The oldest is Abingdon Wine Estate on the Midlands Meander, known for its outstanding restaurant. Nearby is Highgate Wine Estate, whose elegant tasting room serves cheese platters alongside its four flagship wines. Further east in the Drakensberg is Cathedral Peak Wine Estate, offering tastings looking over the Drakensberg. Not far away, an ambitious farmer grows hops, a fickle plant not native to this part of the world. Most local microbreweries import…

The most interesting part of the animal tracking process comes, Francois Malherbe says, when you lose the spoor. ʻYou start creating a narrative for the animal, what they call inner and outer tracking, and you tap into your intuition.ʼ Itʼs this aspect that struck a nerve for Francois. In the narrative of his own life, the watershed moments have often been guided by his intuition, as if the natural world was slowly revealing his life path. Born in Sabi, the son of a forest manager, he moved in his matric year to the Garden Route, an experience that was unsettling but allowed him to discover elephant footprints above Jubilee Creek. ʻMy father had keys for all those gates in the reserves that say “Do Not Enter”,ʼ he explains. Cut to…

1 | J’ai Du Sleeping Hammock R1 400–R1 700 jaidu.co.za The most comfortable of the hammocks I tested, this one received a solid thumbs up from all I asked to climb into it. The bars on either side create a wide space to laze across and the netting makes it breathable (or breezable, as we joked). The ultimate holiday indulgence, it’s the kind of hammock you take two books to in case you finish one and need to have another handy. 2 | Naturehike Canvas Hammock R1 900  naturehike.co.za Another hammock that was celebrated for its comfy-ness, this canvas option comes in two colours (antique white or dark olive green) and has a natural look and feel to it – the hessian-style rope and wood ensures this would look good…

COMPETITION AND PRIZES Entries are open for the 2021/2022 Getaway Gallery competition. Winners will be announced in August 2022 and we are happy to announce that we have a full round-up of safari and photographic gear prizes from Natural Selection and Outdoorphoto. First prize: Six nights for two people on a dream safari in Botswana with Natural Selection, plus gear from Outdoorphoto, all worth more than R120 000 The winner and their plus one will enjoy two nights at Little Sable, two nights at Hyena Pan (both in Khwai Private Reserve) and two nights at Meno a Kwena in Makgadikgadi National Park worth R75 000. Includes air transfers between Maun and Khwai, and a two-hour road transfer to Meno a Kwena. Offer valid any time except August and December peak…

YESTERDAY From raw beginnings, becoming the Batawana tribal capital in 1915, Maun has lived up to its reputation as a hard-living, cattle-ranching, frontier town. With big game roaming the Okavango Delta on its doorstep, Maun’s “Wild West” reputation was fuelled by hunters telling tall stories around the bar. TODAY The president has lifted the ban on big game hunting but hunters keep a low profile in Maun, as most people in the safari industry are dead against it. Safari tourism is still Maun’s biggest business and accommodation is often priced in US dollars. If faced with this, ask for SADC rates. Botswana’s pula is strong against the rand, so expect everything to cost one-third more than in South Africa. The exception is shared sedan taxis, which only charge six pula…

BLUE BUTTERFLY PEA FLOWERS If you can get your hands on butterfly pea flowers from Thailand, China or Vietnam, you can make your own Malaysian nasi kerabu. Steep the dried flowers in boiling water to release their blue colour, and then use the water to cook your rice. The nasi is typically served with chicken and salted egg, and with a herb salad, aka the kerabu, a mix of finely shredded local herbs and raw vegetables, long beans, bean sprouts and cabbage. Alternatively, you can use the blue extract to create vibrant cocktails. RED CABBAGE It’s not that hard to make a natural blue dye. Just take a red cabbage, cut it into pieces, and boil it. Once the purple broth is extracted, add baking powder and watch it turn…

During the 19th century, Dutch settlers celebrated New Year in a big way, with an annual feast and much indulgence. The next day, 2 January, the slaves of the Cape were given a rare day off, to celebrate however they chose. Even after slavery was abolished in 1834, the tradition of celebrating 2 January continued. It has evolved into the festive Cape Town Minstrel Carnival we know today. In the 1900s, the carnival moved around a few locations but in 1907 it was organised by the Green Point Cricket Club and moved to the Green Point Track, which became tradition. Throughout the apartheid years, the carnival was moved around after forced displacement, and in 1967 it was banned from Green Point Stadium – now called Green Point Athletics Stadium, which…

1 January 1502 – Portuguese explorers land at Guanabara Bay on the coast of South America and name it Rio de Janeiro (River of January). 3 January 1924 – British Egyptologist Howard Carter finds the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor after years of searching. 4 January 1809 – Louis Braille is born in France. Blinded at the age of three, at 15 he invents a reading system for the blind that has remained largely unchanged and is still used today. 7 January 1714 – A patent is issued for the first typewriter, designed by British inventor Henry Mill ‘for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another, as in writing’, but the first functioning typewriter is only built in 1808. 17…

Martin Meyer, STUDENT AT 1000 HILLS CHEF SCHOOL ‘The recent blossoming of craft alcohols, particularly beer and gin, has opened up a plethora of new and exciting ways for me to consider food and drink pairings as a chef. The cosmopolitan dining styles of KZN have also been a huge influence in broadening my culinary horizons.’ Thulani Memela, HEAD BREWER AT NOTTINGHAM ROAD BREWING COMPANY ‘There is nothing more exciting than seeing people from all over the world drinking and enjoying the product I have made with my own hands.’ Craig Sutton, OWNER OF NGWENI RAILROAD BREWERY ‘I love the year-round sunshine and outdoor seating that KZN eateries offer. Since Covid-19 hit, I’ve witnessed a new awareness and appreciation for simple, freshly prepared foods and a genuine interest for craft-brewed drinks. This is…

1 TRUST YOUR GUT Cultures with a rich history of tracking encourage intuition, instinct and a deeper connectedness to nature. Play with various possibilities and outcomes. 2 GET CURIOUS AND GUESS Constantly make up stories and theories about the animal you’re tracking. Imagination is such an important part of tracking, and really helps you stumble upon the next discovery and smaller details. 3 UNDERSTAND THE FUNDAMENTALS OF TRACKING Look at tracks and ask: What was this? What was it doing? When was it here? Where was it going? Why was it here? 4 MAKE SENSIBLE DECISIONS What are your senses telling you? Tracking in its purest form is a true combination of all five senses. 5 CULTIVATE A TRACKER’S MINDSET The ancient art of tracking helps us build a relationship…

Experience seal snorkelling for yourself with Animal Ocean. An exhilarating two-hour, 30-minute seal snorkelling experience is half price – R499 – on Daddy’s Deals until 15 March 2022. Scan here Fascinating facts about seals 1. Today, there are 33 LIVING SPECIES of seal across the globe. 2. Cape fur seals are not “TRUE SEALS”. Their ears have external flaps; they have huge front flippers; and their hind flippers are not connected to the pelvis and may be rotated forward. This gives them the capacity to walk, and run, on land; hear sound direction in the air; and swim and manoeuvre far more effectively than true seals. 3. Seals have been a PROTECTED SPECIES in South Africa since 1983. 4. Roughly two million Cape fur seals can be found mostly living…

EDNAH ROSEN Ednah Rosen owns Akacia Cafe in the Nhabe Museum cultural hub and returned to Botswana after 30 years in Sweden. Suffering big city burnout in Stockholm, she dreamed of a warmer climate and of writing a Setswana cookbook. She fulfilled her dreams and won an award for her book, Taste of Botswana. Find Ednah at Akacia Cafe and stop by on a Friday from 4pm to 6pm for musical storytelling and soulful vibes. +267 740 640 91, akaciacafe.com THITAKU KUSHONYA Mma Thitaku Kushonya not only won first prize as Botswana’s best basket weaver, but came fourth out of 52 countries in an international arts competition in the USA. She has travelled the world representing Botswana and mentors hundreds of women in how to earn their own living from…