Nguni stud farming in the Suuranys Mountains

Andre Hamman and his wife Maritha moved from Pretoria to retire to the coast. But instead of gardening and golfing, they took on a mammoth restoration project and built a mixed farming and tourism business anchored by a Nguni stud. Wouter Kriel reports.

- Wouter Kriel

FAST FACTS

André Hamman needed a cattle breed that could adapt rapidly to the mountainous terrain near Kareedouw in the Eastern Cape, which is why he chose Ngunis.

He bought many of the animals that formed part of his foundation herd from a farmer in Mpumalanga, and learnt the hard way that they did not have natural immunity to a deadly local strain of Asiatic redwater.

Hamman also farms Dohne Merino sheep and rents out cottages on the farm to diversify the operation’s revenue stream.

Kareedouw is a small town in the Eastern Cape, 150km from Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) and nestled between the Tsitsikamma and Suuranys Mountains. It is here that André Hamman, recently retired from a career in the medical field in Pretoria, stumbled across a new and unexpected adventure.

“My wife Maritha and I relocated to Nature’s Valley [in the Southern Cape] in the early 2000s, settling into a relaxed life of gardening and playing golf. One weekend we went to visit friends near Kareedouw, and came across a very neglected farm that was for sale,” Hamman recalls.

He thought it would be a good idea to have a small weekend getaway place. “The farm was completely derelict with uninhabitable houses, and some of the river courses were overgrown with alien vegetation. In some cases, it was so bad you couldn’t see or reach the water.”

However, the farm had good water sources and high potential, so the Hammans bought it in 2006.

A CHALLENGING START