Make a pit stop
Stock up on padkos and goodies to take to the Kruger or home with you – make sure there’s room in your boot!
Alles Beste has a surprisingly excellent wine selection, sweet treats and fresh produce (especially herbs). padstal.allesbeste.com
Plaas Maak R71 Polokwane is great for general store nostalgia – Chappies on the counter, home-made rusks and fresh produce.
Haenertsburg Foodzone, on the corner of Rissik and Rush streets, is not strictly a farm stall, but you’ll find local eggs, Magriet’s preserves (try the Gluhwein On Toast) and Wegraakbosch cheese here if you can’t get to the farm for a platter.
Magoebaskloof Farm Stall and
Café for proper coffee and woodfired pizza. It also stocks Packhouse gin, Bao Mayo and other great sustainable goodies. facebook.com/ magoebaskloofmountain/
Happy Hippo biscuits and cranberry crunchies for padkos and hit the road.
Deviating slightly from the R71 once more, I take the Old Coach Road and another family story springs up. I recall that my parents honeymooned down this same trail at the Old Coach House – as did I, snug in mum’s belly. This time I’m staying at neighbouring Kings Walden where journalist and hotelier Bridget Hilton-Barber – her family has owned the property since 1904 – greets me warmly and thrusts a gin and tonic into my hand.
“It’s from the Old Packhouse Distillery near Tzaneen – their dragon fruit gin is the best,” she tells me. Sipping on my pink drink, I admire Kings Walden’s gorgeous terraces, spindly forest fever trees, clumps of clivias, and beds that wear azaleas like snow, and thoroughly enjoy Bridget’s family tales as we stroll through the magical gardens, which were started by her grandmother Elsie in the 1930s.
Back in the candlelit dining room, supper starts with melanzane, followed by silky pea soup and succulent trout fillet. I’ve been hankering after cheesecake since leaving Mountain Café, so it’s my nonnegotiable dessert of choice before
I roll outside once more to meet Bridget. I find her at the Lightning Tree, an old bluegum at the viewpoint, which was struck by lightning on the night, many years ago, when Elsie passed away. Ever since, the tree has been seen as a symbol of the romantic spirit that pervades Kings Walden. “My mother, Tana, loved to cook. She never served the same dish twice,” Bridget says as we gaze out over the glittering lights of the Letsitele Valley.
Tana’s love for cooking endures in the current kitchen, where head chef Lizzy Modjadji Phokungwana is ably assisted by Creasy Gabaza Sono and Lara Luis. To find out more, the next morning I join Creasy for a stroll in the organic vegetable garden. “Steven Jacobs [the ex-hotelier and Michelin chef who ran Kings Walden from 2010 to 2014] taught me how to cook, but my grandmother says I always loved baking. My sister even teaches cooking now – I think it’s in our blood,” Creasy tells me while plucking herbs for the breakfast menu. It’s time for me to go, however, and while I’m reluctant to leave this wonderful place, there’s more to discover on the final leg of my journey.
PHALABORWA HAS
BEEN DESCRIBED AS
THE TOWN of two summers, something my Toyota agrees with because the thermometer reads 37 degrees as I slide into town. Someday, it might also be celebrated for its whisky and gin. At Qualito Craft Distillery, Pierre and Loumarie Raubenheimer have been experimenting with flavour and technique since 2005 and theirs is one of the few distilleries to ferment their own grain on site. American oak barrels lend caramel tones to their ambrosial Limpopo Reserve South African Whisky, and The Grey Hawk Classic Craft Gin (named for the African harrier hawk frequently spotted in the area) is a must-try with salmon and oysters. I leave with a box bearing four bottles as Christmas gifts.
Phalaborwa is also associated with copper mining, but the existence of traditional salt mines remains rather off the radar. Luckily it’s an easy one-hour drive to Baleni Cultural Camp, where I meet Tshinashaka Tshivhasa, an African Ivory Route guide. We chat in the shade of an open rondavel while we wait for two Tsonga women, Phephu Mathebula and Misola Mahorhi, to make their way to the spring at the Klein Letaba River.
When they arrive, we join them beneath a leadwood tree, where they present the ancestors with an offering before proceeding to the traditional filters where salt emerges from sand. There must be 80 filters lining the riverbank and, in the dry Limpopo winters, many women temporarily relocate here to hand-harvest the salt according to a 2 000-year-old process.
The salt-encrusted sand is collected and leached with fresh water through clay filters five or more times until the liquid runs clear. It is then boiled over a fire until, some hours later, the crystals of the renowned Baleni Sacred Salt, known for its high mineral content, emerge.
Watching these women work according to ancient tradition has been a true privilege and a fitting end to my R71 road trip. It’s been a bona fide salt-of-the-earth ride.