MY FAIR HOLIDAY
Chris Harvie moves into a mansion away from Plett’s seaside hordes
OPENING the oversized front door, we step into a panelled, yellow-woodfloored hall, which seems to extend forever through a sumptuous drawing room and then onwards past Georgian-style sash windows and into the fynbos beyond.
One of my companions does the only thing one can really do when faced with such magnificence: he sits down at the grand piano and plays Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
Staying at Fairview, at The Crags, near Plettenberg Bay, is like having your own country house, away from the seaside hordes but close enough to be on the beach at Nature’s Valley in 15 minutes or shopping in Plett in 10.
The house is set in 30ha of fynbos and looks westwards over the Keurbooms indigenous forest to the mountains beyond, where, on the night of our arrival, the sun sinks languorously between two distant peaks as we wander around the lovely semi-formal garden, gin-and-tonics in hand.
Near the house stands a small pond with trickling fountain and deeper in the fynbos, almost hidden from view, we find a pool.
While Fairview would undoubtedly be a great place to do nothing but soak up, let’s face it, the very fair view, it is probably best suited to doing the exact opposite: assembling a gang of mates with walking boots, fishing rods and mountain bikes and making the most of all that this unspoilt corner of the Garden Route offers.
At dawn the next day, we head down the winding pass to Nature’s Valley for a potter around the lagoon, followed by an hour-long walk along one of the region’s most unspoilt beaches and then breakfast in the village shop.
By midday, we have made our way through Plett to the car park at the outset of one of our country’s most magnificent day walks, and headed right to the end of the Robberg Peninsula, with its dense flowers, long views and bobbing seals. It is not an easy walk but, on a sunny day, it’s an absolute must.
In the evening, barefoot, we knock up a toothsome kudu salami salad in the kitchen-cum-dining- room-cum-parlour, where a roaring fire in the grate means everyone can snuggle down after supper, nibble on a delicious emmentaler from Nature’s Way Farm Stall and sip on a Boplaas Port from the excellent Thyme and Again deli.
Plettenberg Bay has so much to offer the weekender, apart from the obvious shopping. There’s a snake park, Monkeyland and Birds of Eden, which, under a 2ha dome, is the world’s largest free-flight bird sanctuary.
If you prefer your birds completely unfettered, Fairview is also right on the edge of the Tsitsikamma National Park and there’s any number of walks and big trees with great birding.
If you are really bonkers and up for even more superlatives, the world’s highest bridge-based bungy-jump is just up the road on the Bloukrans Bridge.
As for eating, Plettenberg Bay has a wide range of restaurants. We lunch at the delightful Emily Moon and then enjoy a really good dinner at Simon Ash’s restaurant, The Fat Fish.
After a night out on the town, the 10-minute drive back to Fairview fades into nothing. We pour ourselves another port as the moon rises over the fynbos.
We soon fall for the allure of the rippling cotton-sheeted beds and our contented snores become our own Nachtmusik in our own baronial mansion. — © Chris Harvie