Living South African Culture From the cape to the land of the Zudus.

LARA SAGE explores the heritage of South Africa in two different ways, first at a fun party in the Karoo, and then through a tour of her family’s homeland in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.

- Lara Sage

Part 1: Western Cape

A friend of mine turned 40 recently, and for her birthday party she booked out The Lord Milner, the only hotel in the preserved historical town of Matjiesfontein (matjiesfontein.com), a two-hour drive from Cape Town. It had a “Boer and Brit” theme (she’s Afrikaans-speaking and her husband is English), and their guests dressed up in Wimbledon tennis attire, or as London socialites, Afrikaner farmers, British army generals or Voor trekker settlers – there was even a Posh Spice in a sequined Union Jack!

Matjiesfontein means roughly “fountain of little reeds”, referring to the rush mats (matjies in Afrikaans) that were used to build huts there, and it has a history as charismatic as its name. Founded in 1884 by legendary Scottish railway man James Douglas Logan, it became a fashionable Victorian health spa. Later, it seemed destined to fade away into insignificance, until it was privately purchased in 1968 and proclaimed a National Heritage Site in 1975.

The Lord Milner has been lovingly restored, with plenty of attention to the original fittings. Despite this, the passage floorboards do still creak if you step on the right (or wrong) spot, so it’s no surprise that ghost stories abound. We laughed ourselves silly when encouraged by our entertaining tour guide, John, to stand on one particular tile and take a photo using a flash, to see a “ghost” appear. (You’ll have to find out for yourselves what happens!) John went on to tell us, with a twinkle in his eye, that he was the “coloured” descendant of a white great grandfather, and of a grandmother who was the “local hot chocolate” of the day!