In the tiny village of Bundanoon, New South Wales, Australia, Marianne sits surfing the net. As she nostalgically surfs Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, where her ancestors lived, a photograph of Hackleton Hill Country House comes up.
It looks so familiar. Suddenly, with a choke in her throat, she realises she is looking at her mother Winifred’s old home – the house where her Granny Alice first lived more than 100 years ago.
Marianne finds some old, treasured family photographs and sends them to the family home once called Essendene, now Hackleton Hill Country House.
Some of those nostalgic photographs now grace the walls of the beautiful 1898 Victorian house where Winifred once played under the coral and oak trees. Winifred, as a little girl in lace and ribbons, gazes wide-eyed at the camera.
Today, when you drive into Hacklewood Hill Country House, it’s hard to believe you are only 10 minutes by road from Port Elizabeth airport and even harder to believe that decades have passed since Winifred lived here.
The coral and oak trees she played under as a child are now huge, towering over a lush garden where sunbirds skitter about the bushes and Knysna turacos – loeries – clamber around the thickets.
The original house was built with great care and love by a respectable be-whiskered local GP who imported the design of the house and all the furnishings from a prosperous late-Victorian England.
Winifred and her mother would still feel at home here. The house remains much the same (although airconditioning, wi-fi and heated towel rails betray a newer side) and is now a sought-after haven for travellers.
Even the most discerning of visitors would be unable to fault any one of the imaginatively furnished eight suites, ranging from the Madiba Room, which has a masculine feel with brown and cream tones, antique kist and four-poster bed, to the Flamingo Room, a rhapsody in pink, each with a balcony overlooking the garden.
The main feeling – apart from the welcoming hospitality – is of space. You could almost fit a Sandton townhouse into one of the grand Victorian bathrooms with their hand-painted claw-foot baths, cushioned chaise longues and tall showers. There are spacious lounges throughout the house – some with colourful couches and bright kelims, others with muted greens and pastels.
Antique furniture, Victorian memorabilia and original watercolours, old prints and pastels grace the interior. Not only Winifred but even the widow of Windsor would feel at home here.
Before a memorable dinner of fresh line fish and home-made crème brûlée, I make my way down steep wooden stairs to visit the Hacklewood Hill wine cellar.
On display in the cold stone room are fine local wines, French champagnes and a rare collection of vintage reds.
No wonder Hacklewood Hill Country House has so many repeat guests. Marianne, Winifred’s granddaughter, who has been invited to stay by the current owner, Trevor Lombard, remembers staying here as a child.
She writes that she is delighted the house is still standing and that others can now “enjoy the gracious spaces and the garden”.
How can the Sands Hotel at St Francis, another property in the African Pride collection, match this, I wonder?
I needn’t have wondered. Although we’ve skipped a century I’m still cocooned in style, good taste and natural beauty.
St Francis Bay is only 50 years old – Winifred wouldn’t have known about this modern themed village with its matching black and white architecture. It has evolved from a fishing camp of thatched rondavels to one of the Eastern Cape’s most sought-after destinations and developments where an extensive canal system stretches from the Kromme River to the marina and old fishing port.
Think beach house rather than hotel. White walls, thatched roof and floor-to-ceiling glass windows and doors look out on to a long stretch of pristine beach.
Hide away in one of five suites, each with its own deck, Jacuzzi and underfloor heating for those chilly nights, or on warm days enjoy the main wraparound timber deck with its 300º panoramic view of pink sunsets and even pinker dawns.
There’s much to do in the area. May to September is whale-watching time, but I’m here in an unbelievably warm and sunny July.
I could have gone fishing, canoeing, black water tubing, snorkelling, diving, sandboarding, hiked a trail, had a scenic flight or gone ballooning.
Instead, in a golden dawn, I cycle slowly along the shell-bedecked beach with Rudi Moolman, the young manager, as gulls fly overhead and dolphins drift by.
Next stop is Pumba Private Game Reserve, an hour from Port Elizabeth and 15 minutes from Grahamstown. The candelabra aloes are blazing red and orange and the torrential rains of early July have subsided, leaving the countryside greener than Ireland.
As evening draws in, I sit on the deck of Water Lodge and watch a breeding herd of elephants come down to drink. Two white rhino mooch about the plains on the other side of Lake Kariega and warthogs – seemingly dozens of them – go down on their knees to dig for roots before trotting purposefully off in a typically perky manner. Impala, blesbok, blue and black wildebeest join the throng as the sun sets and a pale white full moon rises.
The original farm, Cariega, was first owned in 1813 by the Boer leader and trekker Piet Retief, who with many of his fellow trekkers met a bloody end at the hands of the Zulu leader Dingaan.
Today, the local people who work at Pumba shiver as dusk falls and say they can still hear the footsteps of Retief and his murdered wife crossing the reserve. They hang up horses’ hooves at various points to ward off the ghosts.
However, I’m not here for ghosts. I’m here to see the legendary white lions. Pumba is home to only the second known free-ranging population of white lion in southern Africa.
One pure white male and one white lioness hunt only part of the five biomes of the reserve because their gene pool must remain pure and not mix with their tawny cousins. They have just produced two white cubs, a remarkable breeding achievement.
There in the early morning light are these dazzling creatures still considered sacred by many indigenous people. The male and his white wife lie dozing in the sun as two small cubs gambol in the long grass. This is the first litter – apparently one in every four cubs conceived could be white; so Trevor Lombard and Dale Howarth, the owners and visionaries behind the creation of Pumba, have scored a perfect 10.
Malaria-free Pumba is a lovely place of mountains, forests, savanna, fynbos and sweeping plains. The two lodges – Water Lodge and Msenge Bush Lodge – are the ultimate in luxury, fine food and superb service.
As I leave, a leaflet on my Rhodesian teak desk asks, “Did we exceed your expectations?” My answer is an unequivocal yes.
You’ll find the Eastern Cape full of unexpected surprises – Winifred, waves and white lions are just a few I found.
Now it’s up to you…
l Kate Turkington was a guest of The Sands at St Francis, Pumba Private Game Reserve and Hacklewood Hill Country House. - Sunday Tribune