Heritage accommodation in George, Garden Route, South Africa
Category: My Guest House Life
When I had been running the B&B for close on 15 years I told myself that it was time to start writing down all these stories about the restoration process, the day to day joys and frustrations of running a guest house and of course all the recipes and tips that I’m forever dishing out.
I have a few friends who also run B&B’s and whenever we get together, you can be sure that within minutes we’ll be sharing tips, recipes, a joke or a funny incident. Exactly a year ago my friend Liza encouraged me to write candidly about the joys (and frustrations) of running a guest house, categorized on my blog as “My B&B Life”. This week I want to tackle tricky issues around accents and cultural differences.
An Afrikaans speaking person will ask for breakfast at ‘half sewe’ (6h30), someone from England will talk about ‘half seven’ (7h30) and another person may talk about ‘half-past seven’ – three different meanings to similar-sounding request, fertile ground for misunderstandings! I’m sure fellow B&B owners will sympathize with my frustration (because it’s probably happened to them often!) when a guest who requested breakfast at 6.30 (which requires a wake-up time of 5.30 for the guest house owner) then casually waltzes in at 7.30. The problem is that you’ve been robbed of an hour of sleep with only yourself to blame as, chances are, you were the one who made the mistake with the half-past six / half six story.
I think I should offer cooking class exchanges officially on my website! I was delighted when Dani, who lives in London, but is of Greek descent, offered to teach me how to make dolmathes using the new leaves from our vine. Last year I exchanged recipes with an Ukrainian guest and in December we had guests from Mumbai who demonstrated and cooked us a traditional Indian meal. What fun! Not only do they learn something about South Africa food, but they get an opportunity to have a home cooked meal and we get an opportunity to eat something exotic.
I never realised that Dolmades are cooked in a tomato sauce (either in the oven or on hob over very low setting) Dani showed me how to use two plates as weight to ensure that the Dolmades remain covered in this delicious, buttery tomato sauce.
Today I would like to share the following, written by our son Alex:
“We headed out from a launch near the Cape Town Waterfront to hunt for snoek, those nasty looking wolves of the sea – to most people the quintessential South African fish. We must have looked rather comic as we chugged out of the launch site, four big guys perched on a tiny, pink rubber duck. After cruising about for a while we spotted a group of boats floating together about two kilometers offshore and we immediately knew they were into the snoek. The adrenalin was pumping, but we had to keep to a pretty moderate speed as the small boat climbed up and down the swells. Eventually, we joined up with the other boats and rushed to get our lines in the water.
I love a good cup of coffee…Remember, we lived in Namibia for 13 years and there we were introduced to a European style cafe culture. Often the coffee there is served with milk enriched with evaporated milk. We could buy imported coffee brands long before our coffee taste buds were developed to the degree that they are today in South Africa.
At the breakfast table, I will often have guests express appreciation at the good coffee I serve. We buy our coffee, freshly ground, on a weekly basis from a local roaster. Which also means that I can order coarser ground coffee to go with the plungers that I put out in the rooms and finely ground for my Bialetti pots – my preferred method of serving the coffee at breakfast.
This December I’ve had a guest make the booking and then mention as an afterthought that she had a little Yorkie; surely I would not have a problem with that? My reply: ” If your little Yorkie can handle my big Bull Mastiff then we do not have a problem… “. I’ve had guests threatening to sneak our one-year-old Bull Mastiff into the bedroom and I’ve had guests reeling back in horror at the sight of a dog.
Bull Mastiffs turned out to be perfect guest house dogs: they are non-territorial, not unnaturally aggressive and hardly ever bark.
Because it was partly hidden behind high boundary walls, the true beauty of Fairview only became obvious once I drove through the new gates. Then the regal proportions and straight-lined design of the double storey dwelling, built around 1865, could be properly viewed.
To me, the old place had a rather Georgian flavour that was further enhanced by the symmetry of the quite formal front garden, or perhaps I simply sought a scenario where traditional European elegance blended with the typical colonial style of the Victorian era.
Shortly after I opened doors I received a booking for three policeman to share the family room. Now that sounded a bit weird, but the agent confirmed: three gentlemen and they had to share a room and could I please confirm the private entrance and secure parking.
It was just getting dusk when my front door bell rang and there were the three policeman. Beach-bum impersonater smelling of beer, gangster wannabe’s as charming as can be and parked in my driveway – a dented rust tin of a Kombi van.
On my request to see some ID, the one chap flipped open his ID badge, but much too fast for me to really see whether it was authentic. He then explained that they had to share the room because they were here to assist the local police and that they were transporting ammunition that they were not allowed to leave in their vehicle. That just freaked me out! Here I had to watch three men store an arsenal of guns under my antique wrought iron and brass four poster bed.
When my husband returned from work, I related my story of woe. He took one look at the van with the tinted windows and declared: yes, tonight they are going to rob a bank and it will be all over the papers, ‘robbers stayed at four star guest house in George’.At that stage he was still not so convinced about this guest house thing that I wanted to try, so did not offer me too much in the line of sympathy.
I decided to phone the local police station to find out if they were expecting three policemen and couldn’t say that I was surprised that they were not. They kindly offered to send a patrol car around a few times in the night, but did not think it was wise to confront the men.
They had paid cash on arrival and were now officially paying guests.Thankfully I had no other guests to worry about and with hubby happily snoring away, I spent half the night peering into the parking lot to see if the kombi van was still there. The next morning my three bright eyed and bushy tailed policemen,once again in civilian dress, tucked away heartily into bacon and eggs, served them by a not-so bright eyed and bushy tailed hostess.
With great relief I saw them off. Within minutes I got a phone call from the local police station to say that I had nothing to fear – they were expecting three officers, but that the police station had not been notified in advance as it was an undercover operation.
When Desmond came home for lunch it was to find a note on the table telling him to make himself a sandwich and not to wake me up – I was making up for lost sleep!
Weekend Getaway: A historic homestead in George. Sunday Times Live April 2012 Article by Paul Ash:
“I’M tired of boxy hotels, and I’ve had enough of drek little B&Bs owned by poxy, unhelpful pinch-faced landlords and stuffed with décor from hell. There, I’ve said it.
Running a B&B should require a licence, where applicants are subjected to the same vigorous scrutiny as those who wish to own automatic weapons. Sadly, that is not the case, which means I spend an inordinate amount of time sifting through the dross.
George, as you may well imagine, is overstocked with B&Bs. The town has more accommodation options than Jo’burg has Tuscan palazzos, so I was well pleased, on my very first troll of the web, to stumble across Fairview Homestead, a former farmhouse, built some time after 1864 and sold to one Koos Stander in 1894. The family farmed apples and cattle until 1974, fending off the urban creep. Today, the homestead is an island of beauty in the middle of George’s spreading metropolis.
I wanted, in short order, an airport pick-up, a good home-cooked dinner, a really decent bed – and character. Lots of character. Fairview has the latter in spades – you can see that from the website. But how about the airport pick-up – 20km is a long way to walk – and what about dinner?
The owners, Philda and Desmond Benkenstein, were away, and apart from their locum, Richard, who provided a cheerful airport taxi service, I had the place to myself, along with a Boxer puppy and a wandering cat. It’s not every day one can play lord of the manor in a rambling Cape-Georgian mansion, and roam the rose garden like it’s yours.
The Outeniqua mountains were lit by the last of the sun as the Boxer and I prowled the garden, crunching happily along the gravel paths, feeling the heat seep out of the day. I watched the mountain flanks turn red then fade into darkness as the night rose up; the Boxer uncovered a stiff, dead mole and its joy was unconfined.
Richard, meanwhile, made dinner. Bangers and mash with a salad sourced entirely from the garden. Fairview’s vegetable garden is famous. As he served dinner, Richard noted – with some regret, I felt – that the only things that didn’t come from the garden were the sausages and the bottle of red wine.
Eating food as fresh as that, there is a glorious stirring of the senses, and it is useful to be reminded of the fact that, once upon a time, we ate like that all the time and were probably better for it, despite constant anxiety about hungry sabre-tooth cats and competition from other gangs of foraging hominids . so no change there, then.
I retired to a Victorian bedroom with antique iron four-poster bed and chaise longue in front of the fireplace, a whirring fan by the bed and heavy wooden shutters to keep the night out, and slept the sleep of the just.
True to form – me wishing that perhaps the service wasn’t quite so, well, obliging – there was a gentle knock on the door before dawn. Time to go to Mossel Bay to catch a freight train. But that’s another story.
WHERE IT IS: On the eastern edge of George, 20km from the airport and 8km from Victoria Bay.
WHY GO THERE: The house is a classic Cape-Georgian mansion with a big enough rose garden for you to lose yourself in. Although the farm has been swallowed by development, the quiet and expansive grounds mean you are hardly aware that you are, in fact, in a sizeable town.
WHAT IT HAS: Two lovely big double rooms in the main house and an outside studio that also sleeps two. Breakfast is included and dinners are available on request. The famous garden – a good place to hide from the world for a while – is an attraction in its own right. Apart from the veggies, there is a formal lavender and rose garden and enough indigenous plants to keep local greenies happy.
WHAT IT’S LIKE: Impeccably clean, beautiful to look at, quiet and relaxing.
AND THE FOOD: Richard cooked an excellent dinner of bangers and mash. The salad ingredients had been growing minutes before reaching my plate. It really doesn’t get better than that.
RATES: Superior room starts at R440 per person sharing, R390 per person in the luxury double. Single rates start at R490. There is a discount for longer stays.
GETTING THERE: Turn left out of the airport, then first right onto the R102, the pretty little country road that will take you into George and right across the bottom. It’s much easier and nicer than using the N2.
WHAT THERE IS TO SEE ON THE WAY:If you’re staying for a while, check out the Outeniqua Railway Museum (2 Mission Road, George, phone 0448018288, open Monday-Saturday). The museum houses a collection of restored steam locomotives – many in working condition – and railway coaches from the country’s golden age of rail travel. There is also a collection of historic vehicles, including a rare Brill SA Railways bus.
The museum is also the departure point for the Outeniqua Power Van, a converted railway inspection trolley, which runs up the beautiful Montagu railway pass that clambers over the Outeniqua mountains from George. The van makes day trips up the pass, stopping at various places for the passengers to alight and take in the view and learn something about the history of the pass. E-mail opv@mweb.co.za or phone 044 801 8239 for bookings.”
