Watervalonder to Gunyatoo

We woke up to a beautiful morning at our cottage which is actually about 15km down the road from Waterval Boven. It was a windless but chilly morning and soon some young guys had arrived for a morning's fishing in their lake and we enjoyed a lovely walk around the farm and took photos of the mountains and the mist.

We headed down the road to get a geocache at the lime-kilns at Ngodwana. These are historically important as they provided lime for gold-extraction until they started using more modern process. The kilns had also been a destination for the Sunday Times' "Finders Keepers" game and also the "Skattejag" game. The cache was really fun to find and we enjoyed the drive down the valley through places like Malaga and Hemlok. It was cloudy, misty and drizzly which added to the sense of adventure in the finding of treasure.

Then we went back toward Waterval Boven to get another glimpse of the five arch bridge and then onto the Schoeman's kloof road to find a cache at the Helvetia plantations where there is a graveyard from one of the last battles of the AngloBoer war where the Boers routed the British because the soldiers were so certain of victory that they were partying and were too drunk to defend the garrison properly!

We drove along the incredibly scenic R539 from Montrose to Rosehaugh and then along the R37 to Sabie where we had lunch at the Spur and then up the Long Tom Pass to a cache at a scenic viewpoint where the planter had proposed to his fiance'. Then we drove further up the pass and took a left turn on a dirt road to Rhenosterhoek and the Gunyatoo cottage.


What can we say about Gunyatoo? From the research we had done on the internet, the cottage sounded cute. "Rustic" was the word they used - no electricity, battery-lights and a "donkey" (fire-heated watertank). We drove down the bumpy farm road to a thatched stone cottage alongside a complex set of canals for trout farming that are protected by electric fences at ground level that keep otters from stealing the trout. The cottage is huge and very open-plan with a bath outside! At first we were a bit disappointed, but once we got the hang of the workings of the cottage, we had a fantastic time.

One of the best parts of the cottage is that it had an outside bath and shower that were directly connected to the donkey - the water coming out was absolutely boiling and we all had a great time bathing in the great outdoors. Theo even bathed in the starlight. Even though the temperatures were cold, the water was so hot that one came out thoroughly warm and invigorated!

We had a light supper after our big lunch and after reading by candle-light for a bit, we went to bed...