The Restory Retreat Centre

Photograph by George Angus With the water level so low after the drought we are now able to see landmarks usually submerged under the surface of Zaaihoekdam. One of that is the old road leading past our farm to Wakkerstroom. Before the dam was built years ago, it was a fairly straight and much shorter route leading into town. Now we have to drive much further all along the perimeter of the dam. The old inhabitants of the area tell us about homesteads, a bridge and obviously the old road that apparently disappeared for good under water once the dam started filling up. Now, with the drought some of it make an appearance once again, amazingly intact after all those years in its wet coffin. Every time I look at the old road, Rudyard Kipling’s poem comes to mind: The Way through the Woods They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago. Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods Bef...

“ I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” J.R.R. Tolkien The air around us here on the farm is filled with the sounds of birds not easily noticed. I do not know half of them. By the time I get to the bird call CD, I’ve forgotten how it sounded when I heard it on the way to the workshop. On good days I can tell you it wasn’t an African Penguin or a Cape Vulture, but that’s about it. And for the life of me I can’t make any sense from the calls I read about in birding books. A bird would fly right into my face crying “plooodleeoo” and apparently a shriller “kweeeer” and I won’t be able to say: “Watch out, you Blackheaded Oriole!” So, I keep listening to songs I know of singers I don’t. Sebastien, Matilda’s nephew who is currently here with us on Barrowfield, loves fishing. No, wrong spelling! He lives fishing – line, hook and sinker, bait, fishing spots, species, weather conditions, seasons, reci...

Photograph by George Angus Wakkerstroom is in the middle. Not of South Africa. That spot is usually reserved for Bloemfontein. It is in the middle for us. Matilda loves the warmer, wetter northern part of our country. Tzaneen, Magoebaskloof with its mountains and forests. I am more of a plains person. The vast expanses and far off horizons of the Karoo stir my soul. We meet each other somewhere in the middle. Wakkerstroom is not warm, but it is wet. It does not have forests but we’ve discovered klofies 1 with beautiful streams, shady spots under big Ouhout 2 trees, larger than we’ve ever expected them to grow. Mist often covers the landscape, making everything silent and soft. On clear days you can see for miles on end, across vast valleys that are held by gentle mountains and hills on the edges. During the cold winters frost turns the delicate greens into all shades of brown, yellows. I have seen the grey gr...