After last night’s lion and rain filled outing, we weren’t quite sure what to expect with the morning’s drive. Turned out that we had some good clear weather, even though it was pretty chilly until the sun rose pretty well into the sky. We were going out to have a look for rhinos and possibly a big male lion depending on what turned up.
It was rhinos that we got, driving along a road Richard suddenly spotted a rhino horn sticking out of the brush. This is pretty impressive because the brush was fairly dense and about as tall as the rhino. It was a female white rhino with a calf about two years old. We managed a couple of quick pictures before the rhino decided she’d had enough of us and trotted off into the brush again. It’s pretty impressive that a critter the size of a light truck can just disappear silently into the brush, but it can.
After a bit more searching we came across yet another white rhino, this time a big male. He was a bit more cooperative and we were able to hang with him for five minutes or so before he too trotted off into the dense brush.
We kept on looking for more rhinos, specifically hoping to find a black rhino, but nothing turned up. Along the way though, we came across some mountain zebra. They’re stunning animals, they have white bellies and extremely sharply defined stripes everywhere else, with none of the brownish undercoat that other zebra have. We also stumbled across a black backed jackal that seemed pretty curious about what we were up to.
We were warned that this evening we’d be visiting the fancy restaurant at the hotel, so we should have a light breakfast so we have lots of room for dinner. That also meant a fairly short afternoon game drive. We went out to the west of the reserve to look for more rhinos, but didn’t come across very much other than a large herd of oryx. As we made our way back and towards the restaurant, we came across a bunch of giraffes and some of them were playing with and chewing on a kudu horn. Apparently they will sometimes gnaw on bones and horns in order to get additional calcium in their diet.
We arrived at the restaurant to find that it was a quaint frontier style two room house with some tables on the patio. Inside you could see it was well decorated with pieces from the era including kerosene lamps and 1920s music playing. Outside there were clothes hanging on a line and a rusty windmill peaking over the roof. We sat down at a table on the patio and had a “beer” brewed from local plants which is a traditional coming of age sort of beverage. It wasn’t exactly good, but it was chewy! After a bite of an appetizer and finishing our beer we were led inside to check out the house.
They took us out the back door to find the windmill and corrugated metal water tank or silo with a strange lit door on the side of it. This all felt very much like a Cyan style video game at this point and even more so after we went into the door. Inside was a spiral stair case leading down under ground with water falling in the center of it. This lead to a long brightly lit hall way going further underground. This turned out to be a root cellar with various gourds, fruits, cheeses, aging meats and wine bottles along the walls. At the end of the cellar there was a small room with an antique coal oven and a table full of breads, roasted pork and a nice dessert wine to start off with. They served us a fantastic little cup of pumpkin soup to go along with that.
Finally after this room, the door opened onto the dining room with the entire opposite wall open to the sunset over the savanna. This place was apparently built into a hill side. Now time for actual dinner, and they started with a beautiful pumpkin salad with grapes. Our wine pairings came in impossibly delicate stemware. The main course consisted of ten different takes on traditional South African dishes, it was quite a spread. Then there were the several dessert rounds, which were a preserved peach and watermelon gremolata and some sort of whipped evaporated milk. Then a hard meringue shell filled with a camel’s milk caramel, lemon sorbet and date gelatin. Finally there was the truffle course with a couple of exquisite chocolate truffles and after dinner drinks served in more impossible glassware.
W
e didn’t know anything about any of this before hand so it was quite a surprise. The story here is that South Africa’s first chef to earn a Michelin star (Jan Hendrik) created this restaurant as sort of a home coming to celebrate South Africa’s culinary heritage. Quite a night!
5/7/2021