go! Platteland

The slow life is the good life: go! Platteland celebrates the rural lifestyle and the entrepreneurial spirit of people whose hearts are in the platteland – whether they grew up in the countryside or are already based there, are contemplating making the move or simply hankering after the rural life. Platteland offers articles that focus on entrepreneurs, DIY projects, animals, gardening, food, towns and people. It is both practical and inspiring – as much of a visual feast as it is a celebration of great writing.

Is it time to move?

go! Platteland

Chitchat

News & diary • Read about our surprise discovery of peonies thriving in the Karoo. And, to make the most of the long, sunny days of summer, let us fill your diary with town festivals and fun things to do.

A towel for Spot

Send a care package from the Karoo

Love the skin you’re in

Cheers to summer

Dates to diarise*

Splendid things to do this summer

Time to read • Clear the Covid brain fog with a host of new books for lovers of food and nature.

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Let’s go to town • Bushman’s River Mouth, Hopefield, Philadelphia, Pretoria, Lichtenburg, Vredendal… We travelled all over to find the coolest buys for hot summer days.

SWELLENDAM The town that guards its roots • Swellendam, the third-oldest town in South Africa, is welcoming new residents on a weekly basis – people who have lost their hearts to the natural beauty of the Overberg and the town’s lovely historical buildings and rain-rich microclimate. And it’s all possible thanks to Covid-19 and lightning-fast fibre-optic cables.

Meet the people

In a nutshell

Eat, drink, shop and stay over

Islands of green • At least half of Platteland’s readers live in a city or in suburbia, and their escape to the platteland is limited to weekends and holidays. For sanity’s sake, some of us need a daily dose of urban greenery, so we checked out some options in Johannesburg and Nelspruit.

Willemsrivier will put your soul back in your ribcage • Whether it’s the wildflower season or not, if you spend the night on the Kotzé family’s sheep and guest farm Willemsrivier 4 km from Nieuwoudtville, 1795 will seem like yesterday.

KAMPERSRUS The good place in the mountains • In the 1930s, Broer Maré bought a farm named Bedford at the foot of the northern Drakensberg and renamed it Kampersrus, meaning camper’s rest – a resting place for travellers. We got to meet some of the people who decided to settle in this picturesque place in Limpopo.

Meet the people

Eat, drink, enjoy

Enchanted by water • Alan Hobson and his family were living the good life in Johannesburg, but the fishing waters of the Eastern Cape lured him back. Since he and his wife Annabelle moved to Somerset East, their main aim has been to establish fly-fishing as a tourist attraction in the Karoo.

Small is beautiful • Downsizing has become a buzzword among South Africans who want to hop off the consumer treadmill, flee Covid-19 restrictions and embrace the smaller, more important things in life. For many of them, a tiny home in the countryside seems the perfect solution.

Those pesky regulations

Okay, hold your horses

Guard dogs your eyes, your ears, your friends • Having a guard dog is a good option to keep you safe in your home, but a dog cannot be a replacement for a security system. You have more responsibility for your own safety than your pet does.

Safe and sound • Gert Becker, owner of the company SaSpine in Pretoria, had a personal protection dog for almost 10 years. He tells us a bit more about his Rufus.

Pella Oasis in the wilderness • Pella sounds like a faraway place, and it is far away – all the way up north...