Cape Town - What was I doing, freezing on a camp chair in the Klein Karoo veld outside Oudtshoorn as the sun peeked over the hills? I was with several others staring intently at some low-lying scrub and sandy mounds.
We were waiting for meerkats.
Just when I thought our guide, Rudolf, might run out of meerkat facts and yarns, up popped a head, a body, then another and another, until all the family were performing their morning warm-up routine metres ahead. It was such a special occasion for us humans, but another ho-hum day for the meerkats.
Hats off to the researchers-cum guides who have carefully won the meerkats’ trust and made these tours possible. And hats off to the Potgieters who own the farm, De Zeekoe. They have left 1 200 hectares as a reserve to preserve the meerkat habitat.
But let me rewind.
The previous morning I awoke in the charming Montagu Country Hotel – many kilometers and, being the only original art deco hotel in South Africa, many decades away.
It was an all too brief a stay but, as I said goodbye to the hotel’s cats and the Wolraad Woltemade statue out front, I was happy to head out on Route 62 past quaint Barrydale and through sensational scenery to the four-star De Zeekoe Guesthouse, on the Olifants River.
Elephant remains gave the river its name and hippo bones gave De Zeekoe (Dutch for hippo) its name.
Surrounded by the Swartberg and Outeniqua mountains, this is one of the world’s 17 “hot spots” with three overlapping flower zones. You could visit many times and have a different experience each time, though the attention to detail and friendly welcome remains a constant.
It depends whether you stay in or around the main lodge in one of the luxurious rooms or suites, in a self-catering stilted cabin on the dam some way off, or in one of the gorgeous, eco-friendly designer stone cottages on a ridge among wild flowers and veld.
The restaurant dishes up superb food, using De Zeekoe’s own olives, honey, herbs, preserves, vegetables and exotic fruit. It’s lovely to just relax around the bonfire or on the terrace alongside the restaurant and cocktail bar looking over river reeds to the mountains. Or you can swim, fish, canoe, hike, cycle and spot some of the 162 bird species.
However, the mountain passes had enthralled me, so off I went to find more. En route I had a memorable tour of the Cango Caves. The normal tour (there’s a longer adventure version) was over too soon and I made my way to the theatre to see about the other discovered parts of the caves, now sealed forever to prevent harm – they were amazingly beautiful.
Peaking at a little under 2 000m, the switchback dirt road over the Swartberg mountains is doable, slow and easy, in a normal car. I crested the pass wanting to give myself a pat on the back, but felt rather sheepish as mountain bikers came up from the other, equally steep and twisty side. I felt compelled to clap and cheer them on instead.
Down, down, down to the waters at the bottom and then to Prince Albert for a quick cold one and fuel before heading on, making a stop at the Bergwater Estate for value-for money wines before more wonderful scenery and many, many river crossings on the winding way to Meiringspoort waterfall before completing my circle at De Zeekoe, with a mandatory purchase of ostrich feathers along the way.
A happily reflective night on my private stoep, a delicious breakfast, a reluctant goodbye and I was back on the R62 to Barrydale before heading toward the coast to experience more Cape Country Routes properties.
l Visit www.capecountryroutes.com, started in 1997, to plan your Western and Eastern Cape adventures.
Adrian Rorvik, Sunday Tribune
First car is first for the Cape
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Rorvik visited the Montagu Country Hotel, restyled in its original 1930s art deco-dence and continued on to De Zeekoe Guest Farm in the Klein Karoo, an idyllic getaway surrounded by the Swartberg and Outeniqua mountains. Experience Montagu and Klein Karoo with First Car Rental – www.firstcarrental.co.za