Innehållsförteckning för January 2017 från Getaway

Life lessons can come anywhere, even in a shoe store in Hamburg. That morning I’d hired a bike and cycled down past the botanical gardens to the Reeperbahn. I was looking for Beatles-Platz and the clubs on Grosse Freiheit where the Beatles played their first gigs, back in 1960 when Hamburg was a seedy back alley of wharves and sailors and bad tattoos and worse behaviour. Before they took up residency at The Cavern, the Beatles played at the Indra and the Star Club, and the establishments are still there. But before lunch on a weekday both their doors were locked. From the Indra I heard the distant thunk and throb of that night’s act rehearsing in the basement; if a Danish heavy-metal group called Mega-Oktopus ever become global superstars,…

I’ve always opted for a kikoi on my holidays because it’s light and thin, but I admit the absorbency and drying time isn’t great. However, I’m also sceptical of travel towels, so I tested eight of them on the market to find the best one. All were lightweight, compact and really ideal for travel, but some didn’t dry effectively and left everything in my bag with that day-at-the-beach damp smell. No matter the brand, a worthy travel towel should be super absorbent, quick drying, machine washable and made from antimicrobial fabric to prevent odours. I also found that the towels varied in size, feel and drying speed, and many of the microfibre-fabric options tended to stick to me rather than glide along my skin for easy drying. The silky-smooth feel…

‘It’s the best pork I’ve tasted in South Africa in 20 years,’ says Nicole Precoudis, referring to the Oak Valley free-range, acorn-fed pork she uses – and will be serving at the Terra Madre Pork & Cider Fest on 29 January. She’s invited the other four craft-cider makers in Elgin to join her (she’s brewing a special ‘dry, elegant’ Normandy-style one for the occasion) and will be making cider’s ultimate food match, pork, every which way: as charcuterie, pâté, on the spit, pulled, in pies, eisbein and more. There will be cider tastings, stalls selling the pork delicacies, activities for kids and live music. Tables will be set up in the orchard between apple trees laden with fruit (the harvest starts the following week). R50 entry. quicket.co.za CAN’T MAKE IT?…

EXPLORE THE KAROO, ROUTE 62, GARDEN ROUTE AND MORE! Join a small group of adventurous sorts on a unique road trip that blends spectacular scenery with the nostalgia of riding a legendary motorcycle: the Royal Enfield Classic 500. Starting in Cape Town, you’ll head into Franschhoek and the Winelands before cresting the Langeberg, onto Route 62 and the real Karoo. You’ll have the chance to ride the stunning Swartberg Pass, visit Prince Albert, Knysna and the beautiful Tsitsikamma forests and Nature’s Valley before winding your way back to Cape Town on some of the coast’s most breathtaking roads. DRIFTERS ADVENTURE TOURS With more than 33 years of experience in creating and operating unique tours, Drifters is a great resource for anyone looking for their next big adventure. You can find…

WHAT WINE? Flexibility and great holidays go hand in hand. And where fermented grape juice is concerned, there are few more flexible friends than a chilled bottle of pink wine. Traditionally, you look to red wine for robust, meaty meals and white for light and buttery, but antipasti is a mix: salads, olives, charcuterie, garlic, herbs, charred things. So what better than the ultimate in-betweener: rosé. A versatile tipple that’s relatively low in alcohol and mouth-puckering tannins, but with a touch of black fruit that allows it to fandango with a wide variety of food and occasions. In short, it’s custom-made for love, laughter and lazing around a pool, any time from midday to midnight. NB ‘Pink’ wine’s bad rep comes from sweet versions (if that’s your bag, go right…

We did the first two days of a seven-day classic bike tour into the Garden Route and Karoo. The full tour costs R24›000 (incl. accommodation, excl. fuel). drifters.co.za 1 Best view of Franschhoek, Franschhoek Pass. Look out for the lay-by on the right after the second hairpin. 2 Bourbon Street, Robertson. Surprisingly good veggie burgers (R72) for a place that serves everything from Tex-Mex to sushi. 023-626-5934 3 Karoo Art Hotel, Barrydale. Gorgeous themed rooms in a quirky building with many nooks to explore. (Room 15, great bath!) From R560 pp sharing B&B. 028-572-1226 4 Ronnies Sex Shop, Route 62. Classic roadside coffee (R15) stop with some rather naughty adornments. 028-572-1153 5 Die Handelshuis, Calitzdorp. Home-made ostrich or lamb pies (R35) that’ll make your mouth smile. 044-213-3172 6 Calitzdorp Station…

I don’t like the phrase ‘bucket list’. It’s twee and suburban and I mistrust anyone who borrows the phrasing for their life goals from a very mediocre 2007 movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. It’s such an annoying phrase that I’m usually too embarrassed to tell anyone I have one myself. Mine is simply called ‘A list of things to do in my life’. I began it when I was 10 because even back then I was afraid of how fast time moves and how often I forget to do things. Not everything on my list involves adrenaline. The best items don’t. Through the years whenever I came across a new experience in my reading or my conversations that I thought would add some richness or texture to my…

WE’VE SIMPLIFIED You’ll notice less clutter, more white space, simpler fonts and a lot more eye candy. After all, it’s what you come to a travel magazine for – to be inspired by the beautiful pictures. WE’VE BEEFED UP THE FRONT SECTION We want to bring you the best of things to do in that month, not the most. So we’ve grown our front section, and curated more. WE BRING YOU PRACTICAL FOOD I’ve strained my arm so heavy was one cooler bag packed for a weekend away. Wouldn’t it be useful to know how best to travel with food? We thought so, so look out for: sandwiches that won’t go soggy, how to keep meals simple on holiday (page 51), the right way to braai, winning potjie recipes and…

Stay afloat Did you know? The Li-Lo trademark was registered in 1944, but the very first ‘wind bed’ was created by a French upholsterer in the 16th century. These days, floating down rivers on lilos is officially a thing, and this month there are two festivals where lilos (or other flotation devices) are imperative. On the Breede River near Swellendam, Up the Creek (26 – 29 January) is celebrating its 27th year – toast the occasion with one of the music fest’s famed signature cocktails: a Titanic, Life Raft or Rubber Duck. It costs R970 pp for three nights. On the Olifants River near Citrusdal, there’s the Wolfkop Weekender Lilo River Flow (19 – 23 January), where three of the days are dedicated to music but the other two are…

Celebrity TV chef Siba Mtongana My kind of holiday is at the seaside or exploring cities. The places we return to are Pezula (conradhotels3.hilton.com) in Knysna, which is not too far from home, and Zimbali (zimbali.co.za) on the North Coast – that always truly feels like a holiday as it needs proper planning and management because we’re a big, modern-day family! I’m a foodie through and through (or ‘waya-waya’, as we’d say in isiXhosa) so my holidays include experimenting and experiencing other people’s cuisine and indulging at trendy and not-so-trendy spots. The best meal I’ve ever had on holiday was prawns on Mombasa Island in Kenya, with the most amazing chilli-butter sauce. They were as big as my hand. Malindi in Kenya also blew me away. It’s a coastal town…

I don’t like surprises. In fact, I’ve expressly informed my friends and family that on no occasion should I be thrown a surprise party or it will result in a sponge cake being panic-kicked back into someone’s face. Surprises, by their nature, have too many unknowns and if I’ve learnt anything from six years of travelling for Getaway, it’s that the things you know will cause you less grief than the things you don’t know. And it’s true: the best trips have been the ones I’ve planned for, meticulously. Yet there is still one thing that can wreck even the best-laid plans. And that is the weather. I was recently in Gauteng to shoot the cover for this issue and write a guide to Pretoria (see page 123). Good planning…

HOW TripAdvisor lists accommodation rated by guests, but as much as we love peer reviews, they don’t offer a comparative voice. Also, how do we know Number 1 is really the best? Pippa de Bruyn, who has reviewed accommodation for 18 years for the likes of Frommer’s and the UK’s The Telegraph , scours TripAdvisor and other online sites when researching a destination. For Grahamstown, she created a longlist of 25 to inspect. The following made the cut. DON’T MISS THIS • The camera obscura at the Observatory Museum. • High Street’s Victorian shopfronts. • Coffee in the old Provost prison. • Book to visit the International Library of African Music (046-603-8557) and the Eastern Star Gallery (vintage printing press, 046-622-7042). • The festival,…

‘Like all good road trips, this one had started once we’d peeled off the highway’ There’s a wonderfully outlandish scene in the classic British film Withnail and I thattook up residence in my brain the moment I saw it. Richard E. Grant drives a Jaguar MK2 from Cumbria to London with a severely hungover Paul McGann flopping around in the back. Grant swerves through traffic like a madman, gripped by the idea of ‘making time!’ while Jimi Hendrix’s Voodoo Child plays in the background. My first introduction to the Karoo was similar. Except I was the Voodoo Child, bobbing up and down in the back seat of a maroon Kombi between two cousins while my uncle, dead set on breaking the distance/time continuum, sped down the N1 like a madman.…

1 Leatherman Wave WHY INVEST? It has all the essential tools and a 25-year warranty. Made from stainless steel, this is Leatherman’s best-selling multitool, and at just 10cm long and 240g in weight, it offers 17 functional applications. I used the knife to cut hard plastic, which it did easily; opened a tin of sweetcorn with the can opener; and the wire cutters effortlessly snipped a 2mm-thick length of steel binding wire. The large thumb holes make it easy to open the tools. R2 000, capeunionmart.co.za DID YOU KNOW? The Leatherman Wave also comes in matt black with a powder-based metal coating called black oxide. It’s widely used by the military for its effectiveness in reducing glare and reflection. 2 Osprey Meridian 75L Travel Bag WHY…

‘There’s a freshly cut coconut waiting for my arrival and I sip its cold, crisp juice’ A thump of thick, hot air settles over me at the arrivals area. I’m alone in a foreign country that feels daunting despite being just a small droplet-shaped island in the Indian Ocean. I hug my camera closer, double check my passport is still in my pocket and scan a sea of faces for the one I‘d seen on the website. I soon spot Chamara de Silva, my first Airbnb host in Sri Lanka. I breathe out, letting my shoulders sag a little, relieved to see a familiar face. We join the old coastal road that heads south from the airport and the country’s capital Colombo and it reminds me of the terrifying driving…

THE INSIDER Tyson Jopson spent his adolescence in Pretoria. He'll tell you he was there under duress, but the five years of boarding at PBHS were some of the best years of his life. ‘Pinstripes of purple blossoms line sidewalks, fallen from giants’ The first time I decided to really explore Pretoria I was 15 years old and it was the middle of the night. I, and 12 school mates, climbed out of our second-storey dormitory window in socks, like a clowder of cat burglars, and tiptoed across a quad where we’d play hand tennis on sunny afternoons. Then we put on our shoes, which we had tied to our belts by their laces, and sprinted across two sports fields wafting heinous levels of cheap cologne in our wake. We…

Bush break at Mhondoro Game Lodge worth R22 000 Wow! I’m still pinching myself from happiness from winning this amazing prize. What a dream! My husband and I will definitely make a plan to get to Limpopo to experience this incredible lodge. A birthday treat for me. – Janet Perry Family trip to Spier worth R5 000 Thanks to Getaway magazine for this wonderful opportunity to experience the Western Cape and especially Spier. Our family looks forward to spending quality time together and enjoying all the amenities on offer at the Spier wine estate. – Sanjiv Ranchod Garmin VIRB XE action camera worth R6 499 Thank you Toyota and Getaway for a fantastic prize. I will use my Garmin VIRB action cam to document our adventures as we explore our…

It was a name – JW Norris – carved into the wall of the Woodstock Cave that sparked the idea. Now Nicole Biondi’s three-part murder mystery outing is one of about 20 chosen in Cape Town to launch Airbnb’s Experiences – in which visitors can book to discover a slice of life in a city that is unique and different. What makes these experiences special is that the local host is irreplaceable, says Nicole. ‘The host is an integral part of the experience,’ sharing their passions, interests and expertise. In her case, she creates and runs the narrative – taking her guests up to the cave on Table Mountain to set the scene of the 1865 murder, then to a gin distillery in Woodstock, followed by dinner in Observatory (at…

Owner of Curiocity Hostels ‘I started doing walking tours in Maboneng, Joburg. The next progression was to open a backpackers. So Curiocity started in Joburg three years ago and now there’s one in Durban [opened October 2016]. Durban has a lot of hidden treasures, but what I love most is the beautiful architecture [Curiocity is in the gorgeous 1930s art deco building, Ambassador House]. The city is so rich in culture; it’s an authentic, urban African city.’ 55 Monty Naicker Road, 031-286-0025 TAKE A STROLL ‘The Curiocity Walking Tour starts off at the old Rivertown Beerhall, where we look at the history and heritage of the space. There’s great public art there too. Then you can venture off to Warwick Junction, one of the largest informal trading hubs in SA…

‘The nose on a Sauvignon Blanc can sometimes smell like tomato leaves, which works with a classic Caprese salad: tomato, mozzarella, basil and extra-virgin olive oil – no balsamic!’ SMART TRAVELLERS BREADSTICKS By all means pick up a loaf from a farm stall along the way, but if the big stock-up on supplies happens before leaving town, throw in a box of breadsticks. They combine class with crackers’ longevity, staying fresh and crunchy in airtight packaging until you’re ready to use them. SALAMI & SAUCISSON Curing is one of the original ways of preserving meat and a whole salami or saucisson (dry cured sausage) is a neat, hardy package that can be cut on demand. Store in cool but, more importantly, dry conditions – humidity is the enemy here. Support…

HOT TO TROT R869, eigerequipment.co.za The Stanley Classic Vacuum Travel Press features excellent heat-holding ability like its iconic flask, but the addition of a plastic coffee press makes this one of the best ways to make a hot java to go. Featuring a comfortable sipping spout and leak-proof lid, the vacuum-insulated mug will keep your coffee hot for four hours. The durable stainless-steel body fits snugly into a standard car cupholder and it’s super easy to clean too. Stanley also makes a Classic 1-Litre Vacuum Flask. Go to page 63 to check it out. STRETCH OUT R295 for two, frontrunneroutfitters.com Combining bungee-cord features with a ratchet fixture point, the Front Runner Stratchit is a durable tie-down with a difference. The 1,5m length of lightweight,…

< 7 000 That’s how few visitors this park in the southeastern corner of Zimbabwe gets every year. Yet it’s a place of golden cliffs, broad rivers and endless plateaus, a grand stage with a proliferation of players: elephants, lions, hyenas, wild dogs and cheetahs – their numbers are all on the rise. ‘At a time when wildlife and conservation in Africa, and Zimbabwe, is generally struggling, Gonarezhou National Park is a shining example,’ writes photojournalist Scott Ramsay. And because it’s not very well known, those who do visit will have experiences such as this one – crossing the Runde River in a 4x4 – all to themselves. Find out more in the February issue of Getaway.…