Thursday 11th December 2025
We’ve probably had our best nights sleep this holiday, the cool room, very quiet, a very comfortable bed, large enough for 4-adults!!!, and of course an excellent meal last night that satisfied us without being too heavy to go to bed on.
To describe the “Schoone Oordt Country House” would take up too much time but this link will take anybody interested to there site (https://www.schooneoordt.co.za/pages/our-story) well worth a view, and should we ever be back here again, we will certainly stay here at this family run boutique hotel. Our breakfast, like last night’s dinner was food with a difference. To start we had freshly squeezed orange to drink then a 4-course breakfast, quite different to anything we’ve experienced before.
The big party in the hotel which made the owners up-grade our room, were all travel agents from around Germany on a fact-finding trip, (or more likely an all expenses paid jolly to South Africa!!!!). Still they were very friendly and enjoying them selves.
Last night when talking about the old Austin Devon car with Allison (the owners wife), she said it was her husbands first car and he looked “cool” driving it, I did query that statement at the time, but this morning she told me it was his other car he had at that time, (and still owns), this is when he looked “cool”, an AC Cobra: that’s better!!!!
Reluctantly we said our goodbyes and headed about 100-meters down the road to look inside a Methodist Church Margaret had suggested we visit. We circumnavigated this lovely crisp white building, admiring the immaculate gardens with assorted gravestone’s, beautifully tended before finding the entrance door. Once inside we noticed the pews were like an amphitheater over looking the alter instead of the stage. The other point of difference was the shape of the seating position, it was comfortable, the backs had a rake not like normal wooden pews, straight up!! Thank you again Margaret for this gem of a visit, we would have completely passed it by.
Now we headed for a small village called “Barrydale”, a suggested place for a coffee stop, but when we got there and left the main road and headed into the village, we couldn’t find a coffee shop also we thought there were too many unsavoury looking characters about, so headed on our way eventually stopping in a small town called “Ladysmith”. Naturally I thought of the “seize of Ladysmith”, a 4-month un-savoury incident that took place in between 1899 x 1900 during the Boer War; I got quite excited to have a look around only to have my, hopes dashed, in was not this Ladysmith, it is another further north😡😡. Hopefully we will find out more about it during our “battlefield” tours later in the trip. Anyway we did find a nice old place to enjoy a break.
Our day wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to a winery and again, Margaret had marked the specific vineyard to visit, the “De Krans Wine Cellar” in Calitzdorp, and like all obedient children, did as we were told!!! It was a lovely hot day and sitting under the canopy of vines was quite refreshing, it was one of those moments that nearly caught us out and got “stuck-in”, we ordered two glasses of the wine Margaret recommended and it went down a treat, but had to prize ourselves away just in case!!
We now headed to today’s final destination, the “De Zeekoe Guest Farm River Cabin”, a Meerkats destination, but that’s for tomorrow. Again another beautiful place with a superb bedroom, en-suite and balcony over looking “nature” but completely out in the sticks, even the road to it is a dirt track!!! So with nowhere to go they had a captive audience for their restaurant, so were forced to eat in.(https://www.dezeekoe.co.za)
We had to pre order our food, no problem as they had “Ostrich Fillet steak” on the menu, decision made. Again the restaurant was overlooking their very green gardens, no water shortage around here!!! Apart from Meerkats, there is also an Ostrich Safari further up the road, we are in Ostrich territory.
We thoroughly enjoyed our meal and then headed off for an early night as we have to get up at 0415hrs, and drive 15-mins to the Meerkat tour starting at 0500hrs, I hope it’s worth it!!!