Innholdsfortegnelse for Autumn 2019 i go! Platteland

Did you know? In Africa, elephant dung has been brewed as a tea for centuries and it’s used in traditional medicine for anything from headaches to blocked sinuses. Help, there’s elephant dung in my gin! This may sound like a tall story (or a more scatological version of the fairy tale about Rumpelstiltskin who spun gold from straw), but here's the truth: Ibhu’s new Indlovu gin is infused twice with “elephant-foraged botanicals” that had been “selected” and eaten by elephants, and then partly digested and excreted (read: elephant dung). For those of you who shudder at the idea, we have five snippets of good news that might prove enlightening: 1 On Christmas Day, at the home of celebrated chef Margot Janse and Karin Cronje at Boschendal, Platteland got to know…

Woolly Mammoth merino wool (200 g) in the colour Happy Yellow R280 Pull the Wool pull-the-wool.com Pink Grapefruit Syrup (750 ml) R62 Ark in the Karoo 049 836 0029 Cerebos Table Salt in a collector’s tin (500 g) R40 Pick n Pay picknpay.co.za 0800 112 288 Gentleman’s Box with beard balm and wooden beard comb R320 Houtkappers houtkappers.com Limited-edition Elephant shopper made of reject signage fabric, so every bag is unique R50 Uzwelo Bags uzwelo.co.za/shop Cape Canola Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Canola Oil (1 𝓵) R75 Faithful to Nature faithful-to-nature.co.za Tea towel in the design Evita Blue (68 x 43 cm) R225 Abundant African Art aaart.co.za Rosemary Pickled Mushrooms R45 Babushka Deli hazendal.co.za 021 903 5034 Peel’s Peanut, Sesame and Macadamia Nut Brittle (150 g) from R25 each Linga Lapa…

A palm-covered coastline, warm water, coral reefs, mangrove forest and some interesting sand driving await you on this 10-day tour, which starts in the Kruger National Park. We travel east across the lush lowlands of Mozambique and the coastal floodplains. Our route takes us to the village of Sao Jorge do Limpopo and on to Machaila. We have a light picnic lunch en route before we set up camp on the banks of the Chefu River for our first night. After breakfast, we continue eastwards until we get to the town of Mabote, and then turn north to Vilankulo. Travelling overland, we drive through a savannah woodland before the landscape changes to a narrow palm-studded strip of beach at the fishing village of Inhassoro, opposite the northern tip of the…

HOPETOWN Between a rock and a hard place Drive past Hopetown on the N12 and you’d barely spare the town a second glance. Out of the corner of your eye, you might notice a dull place flying by in an even duller landscape. Just north of the town, however, the Orange River creates a green strip where mielies, lucerne and wheat are cultivated under irrigation. It was quite different a century-and-a-half ago. Back then, Hopetown was on everyone’s lips. Hordes of people flocked here after South Africa’s first diamond was discovered between Hopetown and Douglas. Schalk van Niekerk was visiting the farm De Kalk when he spotted 15-year-old Erasmus Jacobs playing with a shiny stone. He reckoned it could be a diamond and sent it away for testing. The verdict…

1 DEEP FROM THE EARTH Since 1908, underground (briny) water has been pumped from boreholes at Soutpan – originally by means of windmills. For this reason the town was supposedly the spot with the most windmills per hectare in South Africa at one time. But because windmills corrode and require considerable maintenance, they were gradually replaced with submersible pumps. Ironically, some farmers have started resorting to windmills once more, owing to Eskom’s increasingly regular power outages. 2 DAM IT! Before a salt farmer can pump out the underground water, they need to clear a patch of veld in the pan and build a storage dam (50 cm to 60 cm deep) as well as a crystallisation pond. The bottom of the crystallisation pond has to be prepared thoroughly: the layer…

WE CHAT TO DONOVAN KIRKWOOD Around the world in one garden A man who aims to help save the world one plant at a time was recently appointed the new curator of the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden. Donovan Kirkwood shares his vision for the future with Maja Palm. For the past 15 years you’ve worked as an ecologist specialising in the conservation of biodiversity. How will this experience contribute to your role at the Botanic Garden? Unfortunately, we’ve reached the point worldwide where most natural systems are under enormous pressure – to such an extent that the mass extinction of species is irreversible. Natural things we take for granted, like clean water and a stable climate, also pay the price. One of the reasons is the fact that modern man…

In the mid 1900s my maternal grandmother ran a boarding house in a small town in the former Western Transvaal. My grandfather farmed on a smallholding – mostly to keep him out of Ouma’s way, because he didn’t produce a decent yield of anything, so Ouma had to make a plan. The boarding house had a wraparound stoep, two rooms opening onto the stoep, three rooms inside the house, and a row of rooms in a long outbuilding behind the house. It filled up quickly with teachers and sundry clerks in different stages of training. The young ladies had their rooms in the house and the young men were put up in the rooms in the outbuilding. Ouma was very particular about the selection of boarders. Her standing as organist…

Winning letter The right to be heard It is interesting to note how some raise their hands and object when reminded of our appalling history. How the facts of our antecedents’ inhumane treatment of fellow human beings make us uncomfortable and defensive. Our Afrikaner nation suffered at the hands of the British. We built a memorial to the women and children who died. We listen to their stories and remember. The Jews were tortured at the hands of the Germans. We built memorials, listen to their stories and remember. The stories of our fellow South Africans we do not wish to hear because we are implicated by descent. Ivor Price shared a heart-breaking story (“The ghost that lives on”, Winter 2018). If it were our personal story, would we not…

You get the first inkling as you turn into the tree-lined Main Street from the direction of Maclear and Mount Fletcher: Matatiele is an exceptional town. An early clue comes when you glance left at the Roman Catholic church and spot a young woman wearing a robe walking along the pavement. A clutch bag on a long gold chain hangs over her one shoulder, while in the other hand she holds a bright-red lollipop. She glides like an angel, slow and proud and upright, white veil billowing behind her in the morning breeze. It’s pension payout day and people are streaming into the CBD from the township, Area C. But 15-year-old Dimpho Puling is not on her way to the shops. Today, she will join her fellow members of The…

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as the saying goes. Soutpan is apparently not beautiful – in any case, not pretty by chocolate-box standards. But don’t get the wrong idea now: it’s not Platteland that says or thinks so. In fact, it is many of the residents themselves who, when asked what makes them feel at home here, start their response with: “We know our town isn’t among those pretty, charming Free State dorpies, but just you wait until you’ve been ‘salt-cured’ here… Then you’re like Lot’s wife: you’re not going anywhere.” It’s as if the lyrics of the Jimmy Soul song apply to Soutpan: “If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife. So from my personal point…

DAY 1 We meet at Camp Nkwazi just outside Livingstone. By the time you arrive, your tents will have been pitched and our bush chef will be preparing the first of the delicious meals you will be enjoying on this safari. We spend the evening socialising around the fire. DAY 2 We get an early start after breakfast. Hand-held two-way radios are issued before we take to the road. We head for Lusaka, where we overnight on our way to South Luangwa National Park. DAY 3 We continue our journey northwards, and overnight at a camp site just outside Chipata. DAYS 4, 5 & 6 Our camp site for the next few days is on the banks of the Luangwa River. South Luangwa National Park is one of the greatest…

1 Choose dry pods (the seeds of these will rattle when you shake the pods), remove the seeds and soak them in cool water for 2 hours in order to rub off the tough pulp on the outside. Then leave the clean seeds on a tea towel or paper towel for a few hours to dry. 2 Lightly rub each seed on the fine side of a grater to make the hard brown shell even thinner until its lighter inner layer is visible in some places. Don’t be too vigorous, or the seeds will die. 3 Place the seeds in a glass bowl, cover them with boiling water and leave them to soak for 24 hours. 4 Now plant the seeds, one each, in small pots (about 10 cm in…

First you notice a herd of sheep piggybacking cattle egrets. Next, several horses. Then chickens scratching up puffs of dust. And only then do you see droves of bakkies, their occupants hurrying towards a farm shed that seems to belong in a storybook. What awaits you every Saturday in this shed on Houdconstant, a mainly fruit farm owned by Fan Olivier, is a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, all grown on farms in the area, meat, cheese, yoghurt and flowers, among others. And on display on a long table in the centre: tarts and tartlets, cakes and biscuits, pies large and small, six-pack punnets with vegetable and herb seedlings, as well as free-range eggs, home-made sweets, nuts, dried fruit… An abundance of jars – anything from kiwi jam to…

Langebaan, Western Cape It was because of the erf number, 5757, and a seal surfing the waves that I decided to sign the offer to buy a mound of sea sand on a Langebaan dune. The plan had been to build a house to fit out as a film studio for local and international fashion crews, but by the time the first floor was cast the half-built structure had become a weekend getaway that made me realise this was where I wanted to live. This was where I wanted to enjoy my coffee every morning, and smile at the rousing music of the waves and the straight line where they break, and then… suddenly and quite unexpectedly, a few seconds of thunderous silence. The view from the deck and the…

From early in the new year we started to get enquiries: Which workshops are Platteland organising this year? Are you coming to the north again? When will you be in the Eastern Cape again? Do you have dates for us yet? The good news is that we are indeed having workshops later this year. And we have our two stalwarts, Annelien Pienaar from Hartbeespoort and Marcelle Botha from Bloemfontein, on board again. This means we’ll be back in Cape Town, Hartbeespoort and Bloemfontein. To our readers in other parts of the country, we have not forgotten about you; we are working on a plan to expand the workshops. Watch this space. Since Annelien and Marcelle are involved, it means we’re talking bread. Here at Platteland we can never get enough…

Matatiele Museum This tiny museum in High Street is in a lovely hall that was once a bioscope and a church. Today, it houses exhibitions about the traditions, rituals and crafts of the local people: Xhosas, Boers, Sothos and Griquas. The museum is dusty, slightly neglected and disorganised. Pop in by all means, but don’t expect too much. The building also accommodates the tourism office. 039 737 3287 Eat out Coffeelicious Coffee Shop & Take-away + The Flower Pot Florist & Gift Shop As the name suggests, Jannie Holtzhausen has a lot going on here. The floristry part of the business is mainly for funerals, but the food, especially breakfast, and coffee are the main attractions. Jannie says they are known for their lamb curry. And we can confirm they…

The semi-desert folds of the Karoo stretch over five degrees of longitude. Vast swathes of arid, dusty and desolate land that to the naked eye look like nothing, but with the right tilt of the head is teeming with life and vibrancy. The Land That Begins Again* is a folder of photographs I’ve been collecting for some time and is a love letter, of sorts, to that place of dust and dreams. My obsession started like many do: harmlessly. Years ago someone asked me to describe my first memory. On reflection, it wasn’t a visual memory at all but a memory of smell: that of sheep in a kraal on a Karoo farm between Matjiesfontein and Sutherland, where my grandfather lived as a young man and I visited as a…

Usually you can expect three kinds of reactions when you say the word “spider!”: First – and unfortunately the largest group by far – there are the people who would immediately reach for the insecticide, a fly swatter or a shoe… or even a box of matches. Yes, they would rather risk burning down the house than share any space with a spider. On the other side of the spectrum are the experts and fans, people who speak up for spiders and come to their rescue, hoping to save them from being exterminated. And somewhere in-between these two extremes there is (thankfully!) a growing group of interested individuals who have had a mind-shift and would readily admit: “Yes, I always used to have a fear of spiders and would kill…

Tommy Rodgers Bloemfontein businessman and former learner at Primêre Skool Soutpan During Sunday lunch at Truksvy, we hear the owners referring to a man at one of the tables as “the headboy”. He is sitting near a banner sporting Primêre Skool Soutpan’s coat of arms and motto: “Be the salt”. The man is Tommy Rodgers, owner of TC Panelbeaters in Bloemfontein, who, with his wife, Zelda, bring along friends for lunch in Soutpan “at least twice a month”, and yes, as the eldest of five, he was indeed at school here from 1976 to 1979, his Standard 5 year. “I would estimate that in those years we couldn’t have been more than 35 learners from Sub A to Standard 5,” he says, “and every second weekend we’d head back home…

About 5 km further south of the pan that lent Soutpan its name, via a dirt road, lies Florisbad. This “health resort” of yore attained international fame as an archeological site in 1933 after Prof TF Dreyer, a zoology professor at the former University of the Orange Free State, discovered a hominid skull here that became known as the Florisbad Man. (This Homo helmei skull, approximately 260 000 years old, is being kept at the National Museum in Bloemfontein, but a replica can be viewed at Florisbad.) “It’s hard to believe that up to 3 000 visitors used to flock here over Christmas or New Year weekends to bathe in the healing waters. Others travelled here to consult the healer Floris Venter, the owner of the farm after whom the…

The Roux family of Tulbagh Nursery have been cultivating anything that grows and is green for 30 years. Here, just outside the town of Tulbagh, you can admire 50 kinds of succulents, 260 types of roses, 30 different citrus varieties and every interesting fruit tree you can think of. On your way to the 20 ha nursery, you’ll pass the growing tunnels where row upon row of plants peek through green netting. “We grow 95% of the plants in the nursery ourselves,” says owner Bredell Roux. “That way we employ 120 local people and we’re able to keep our prices reasonable.” The wide variety and large amount of stock on offer at Tulbagh Nursery keep clients from all over the Boland coming back year in and year out. “We like…

When you hear the word “carob”, do you have visions of rice cakes or dried fruit dipped in this chocolate substitute? And then the thought of the taste, which does nothing to satisfy your craving for genuine chocolate? These days, there is so much literature about the benefits of dark chocolate and how it can be good for you in moderate quantities that it doesn’t make sense to substitute it for carob. Don’t, however, underrate the carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua). Not only is carob powder considered a superfood, but the pods and the tree also have their uses, not least of which is the shade this tree casts. This superplant can provide everything from livestock feed to affordable snacks for humans. Carob is a key ingredient in a range of…