New Management for George’s Oakhurst Hotel

Well-known Mossel Bay hotelier JJ Moorcroft (the creator of the award-winning Protea Hotel Mossel Bay has taken over management of George’s Oakhurst Hotel. He will be assisted by Erica Valentyn, who served for more than 12 years with the Garden Route’s private sector marketing organisation, Gartour.

The 25-room, 3-star Oakhurst Hotel, which has been built in the thatched tradition of a fine Cape manor house, is situated in a quiet side street at the centre of George, the Southern Cape’s capital city.

“We market the hotel under the slogan ‘Urban Tranquility in the Heart of George,’ because there really is no better way of describing it,” said Mr. Moorcroft.

The hotel has positioned itself - both physically and in its marketing campaigns - to attract tour groups, holidaymakers and businesspeople.

“There are no less than ten restaurants within walking distance of our front door, we’re child-friendly, we’ve tied up an agreement with a spa right next door to us, and, of course, George is right in the heart of all the attractions that make the Garden Route great - the golf, the mountains, and the sea - so Oakhurst falls naturally into the touring and holiday markets,” said Mr. Moorcroft.

“But the Conference Market is also an interesting one for us. We’re linked with The Office, a conference facility about two blocks away - so our guests are conveniently close to their meeting rooms, and their guests can either stay with us or eat their meals with us.”

The hotel offers three types of en suite bedroom. One ground floor room has been designed for the disabled; 12 Standard Rooms have twin or double beds; and 13 Deluxe Rooms are situated on the upper floor of the two-storey structure, and have lounges or bunk beds in their loft areas - which tuck in under the thatch of the roof.

Many of the rooms face the Outeniqua Mountains - which tower over George - and all are air-conditioned and supplied with stylish modern amenities. And whilst George is correctly classified as a city, the fynbos-covered mountains give the town a feeling of being in the country - a feeling that has informed the atmosphere and furnishings of both the bedrooms and the public areas at Oakhurst.

“Oakhurst has an outdoor swimming pool and patio, a lounge with a large farmhouse fireplace, a ladies bar, secure open parking, and wireless internet, and our restaurant is open for breakfasts, lunch and snacks throughout the day - so it’s become a popular meeting place for local businesspeople, too,” said Mr. Moorcroft

Ms. Valentyn, who came to George from Johannesburg in 1997, and particularly enjoys coordinating weddings and conferences, said that she relishes the idea of putting new properties on the map.

“I am so excited by Oakhurst because the hotel is of a very high standard, and I know that every guest will be more than satisfied,” she said.

Visit the Oakhurst Hotel on line at www.oakhursthotel.co.za - and watch an interview with JJ Moorcroft at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0ClccFn1Rw

ENDS 510 WORDS

Contact Details: Oakhurst Hotel
www.oakhursthotel.co.za

Reservations: reservations@oakhursthotel.co.za
Marketing: marketing@oakhursthotel.co.za
General Manager: manager@oakhursthotel.co.za
Telephone: +27(0)44) 874 7130
Fax +27(0)44) 874 7131
Physical Address: Corner Meade & Cathedral Streets, George.
Postal Address: P.O. Box 9416, George 6530, South Africa.

Water by Martin Hatchuel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 South Africa License.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf1X7bXlRS0

This is to show you, Dror

 1488 - Just One In A Succession Of 165,000 Years Of History For The Eden Region

How does it happen that places sometimes acquire names which foretell discoveries that’ll be made years after the names themselves have become part of our lives?

Take ‘The Garden Route’ and ‘Eden’ for instance.

The Garden Route - the indescribably beautiful seaward side of the Outeniqua Mountains which define South Africa’s Southern Cape Coast - got its name from its beauty, and it’s been called The Garden Route for ages: probably from the time the first settlers came here two and three hundred years ago.

But with the birth of South Africa’s democracy, the Garden Route was politically married to the dramatic, semi-arid region that lies to the landward side of the Outeniquas - the Klein Karoo. The new entity - or District Municipality - was called ‘Eden’ at the suggestion of its first executive mayor.

It was an unpopular name at first.

But then something odd happened: scientists working on the Mossel Bay Archaeology Project (MAP) discovered the earliest evidence for modern human behaviour just west of Eden’s only harbour town - Mossel Bay.

Geneticists have known for some time that all of us stem from a core population of about 600 people who lived on the African continent about 165,000 years ago; MAP has proved that they lived in Eden - and its scientists discovered this long after the region got its new name. (In the biblical book of Genesis, of course, ‘Eden’ is the garden in which human life - and human folly - began).

Seven years after they started their work, and, strangely enough, around about seven years after Eden adopted its new name, the leaders of the Project - Professor of Paleoanthropology Curtis Marean of the Institute of Human Origins at the Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change and South Africa’s Dr. Peter Nilssen, and their team of nearly fifty scientists - made their findings public.

And now we know that Eden really IS Eden…

This is where man first made complex tools (or, as the scientists like to say, ‘here is the earliest evidence for the use of bladelet technology’), where man first used ochres as paints and dyes (‘in symbolling’) and where our patient ancestors began systematically harvesting the sea (which gave us the essential Omega-3 fatty acids we needed for the development of our brains).

The problem for we moderns, though, we instant gratificationists, is that you can’t, you know, see this stuff. It’s buried, and it’s hidden. And it’s difficult to interpret.

But don’t be lulled into thinking that history took a leap from 165,000 years ago to the arrival of Bartolomeu Dias and friends in 1488 (Dias, the earliest of South Africa’s European tourist, first hit our famous beaches in - you got it - Mossel Bay). Because, of course, people have lived in the Eden District almost continuously - and they’ve left their marks for those who care to find them.

Perhaps the most dramatic evidence of the pre-1488 history of Eden are the ancient Khoi-san fish traps that one finds all along the coast westwards of Mossel Bay: they’re dry-packed stone walls, sinuous in shape and really hauntingly lovely, behind which the fish were trapped in shallow pans when the tide ran out. They’re evidence of an enormous elegance of thought about - and observation of - time and tides, and some of them - especially those along our more remote rocky shores - remain remarkably intact.

Even older, though, are the huge shell middens that have accumulated on the sandy shores of the area - but they’re hidden, of course, and you need a guide to show them to you, and to interpret them.

Fred Orban, an environmental activist, opens the window onto the past for hundreds of walkers every year through his luxury hiking trails - the self-catered ‘Hunter-Gatherer’ and the rather more luxurious ‘Oystercatcher’ - both of which traverse the coast that our forefathers found so hospitable. His guides have made a study of the way the old people lived, and, walking with them, beaches and rocky cliffs that might at first appear barren, forbidding and inhospitable, slowly reveal themselves as the ideal incubators for the emergence of modern behaviour. (At present, this is the only commercial outfit offering tours that touch on the Mossel Bay Archaeology project - although this is set to change).

ROCK ART
But the most famous - and most famously enigmatic - of all the evidence of our ancient ancestors’ journey through Africa are its rock art galleries, which, in the Eden District, survive mostly in the drier parts of the Garden Route and Klein Karoo.

They’re mysterious but deeply fragile and access to them is often difficult - and anyone with a passing interest in conservation will agree that this is as it should be, because they’re also open to abuse and vandalism. And, as a non-renewable resource that stretches thirty thousand and more years into our history, they need all the protection of both the law and the activists. Which is a strong argument for only visiting rock art sites in the company of qualified, competent, and knowledgeable guides.

At least three companies in Eden organise regular visits: Petro Potgieter of Red Stone Hills Holiday Farm, between Calitzdorp and Oudtshoorn, and on the slopes of the Swartberg range in the northern part of the Klein Karoo, arranges regular geology, environmental, and archaeological tours of the area lead by Dr. John Almond and his wife, the archaeologist Madelon Almond.

At San Valley / Mountain Pastures Private Game Reserve - which has more than 500 known rock art sites, Dave Hodgson offers an unusual tour by quad bike to a series of caves and overhangs between Avontuur and Uniondale in the heart of the Outeniqua Mountains.

Many people believe that there are almost no surviving rock art sites south of the Outeniquas, but Nico Histerman (who regularly takes visitors on informal rambles of his Bonniedale Holiday Farm) can prove them wrong. Bonniedale lies north of Mossel Bay, in an area that has a very specific and unique vegetation - and he’s learned to identify new sites by the presence of a species of cabbage tree which, he’ll tell you, wouldn’t usually grow on the higher slopes - but were probably sown there when the artists ate their fruit at the shelters and discarded their seeds.

INSPIRATON
With all this rich, diverse, but mysterious history, it’s hardly surprising that Eden is a place of great inspiration for the artists of today.

Guy Thesen, whose family name is synonymous with the economy of Knysna during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and whose father, Hjalmer, was a well-known writer and story teller with an all-absorbing love of the area (and, naturally, it’s rock art), will open an exhibition of sculptures and oil paintings on glass at Knysna Fine Art on the 9th8of May, entitled ‘Considering Therianthropes.’

“Therianthrope is a Greek word for an animal with a human form,” he said, “and I’ve been looking at them as they were painted by the San / Bushmen and the shamans - the healers in the community.

“They would go into massive, deep, very deep trances, and if they reached a certain level, often they would have these - sort of - brain storms, where imagery and hallucinations would occur and where, for instance, colours would have sounds, and often the imagery of the animals that they would see would fuse with the human forms.”

And this, he said, is the basis for many of the rock paintings you can see in Eden (and around Africa) today.

These are not simple snapshots of life as it was seen by some primitives living off the land - they are deeply meaningful records of their time. “Even the ochres and dyes they used were chosen for their spiritual significance,” said Mr. Thesen.

And in many ways, they’re symbolic of the Eden District as it’s been for 165,000 years (and, with the recent promulgation of the Garden Route National Park, one hopes as it will be for many generations to come): beautifully simple on the surface, but fascinatingly complex for those who care to explore.

Resources:
•    Mossel Bay Archaeology Project http://www.visitmosselbay.co.za/archaeology/
•    Hunter-Gatherer Trail http://www.oystercatchertrail.co.za/huntergatherer.htm
•    Oystercatcher Trail http://www.oystercatchertrail.co.za/
•    Red Stone Hills Holiday Farm http://www.redstone.co.za
•    San Valley / Mountain Pastures Private http://www.sanvalley.za.com/mountain_pastures.htm
•    Bonniedale Holiday Farm http://www.bonniedale.com/
•    Knysna Fine Art http://finearts.co.za/
•    Guy Thesen http://www.finearts.co.za/artists/guy-thesen.html
•    Eden District http://www.edendm.co.za/

OK, lemme come right out and say it: I don’t know the ‘Berg. And THAT’S a terrible admission indeed - but I once went to Injasuthi and I spent a night in a backpacker’s at Sani Top: do they count?

No, actually, they don’t, and reading David Bristow’s ‘Best Walks of the Drakensberg’ (Random House Struik) made me realise how much they don’t.

Walking - I’ll say it again - is the best way to get to know a place, and if you’re going to walk in the Berg, this book is probably the place to start. It begins with a quotation from a mountaineer called Frank Smythe (“Go out alone on the hills and listen. You will hear much… Alone amidst nature, a man leanrs to be one with all and all with one.”)… and it gets better from there.

Amongst other things, the ‘Berg contains a vast collection of irreplaceable rock art, and the first chapter I read was the one on this subject. It set the tone for the rest - here is a writer who cares passionately about his work and, more, about the area he’s writing about.

After the introductory pages, the book reveals the ‘Berg area by area, with, of course, plenty of information about each walk and trail. But here I have a criticism - I get the feeling that you’re kind of expected to know the names of the places you’re going to be walking into. But maybe this is more a fault of the descriptions - or, more likely, my reading of them.

Still, I think when I do finally pack my tent and beetle up to the ‘Berg, I’ll be packing ‘Best Walks,’ too,

This is a revision of a book first published in 1988. Buy it here.

The first question I asked author Jacques Marais when I finally met him (we’d been in e-contact for a while, but never before in the same place at the same time) was, “Did you personally do all those things.”

And immediately the words came out of my mouth, regretted asking it - they showed that I hadn’t even bothered to read the introduction to this amazing dream-builder of a book.

But then if you put the cauliflower and broccoli on the table at the same time as the ice cream and the Bar One sauce and tell the kids to tuck in - who’s gonna eat the veggies? Gimme the sweets! Gimme the sweets!

(No, for the record, Mr. Marais didn’t write all the entries, but that doesn’t matter).

Amazing illustrations, incredible feats, and big, big dreams populate every single page of this book. Kloofing, trail running, canopy tours, catamaran cruising in the islands, snowboarding, rock climbing - everything I’ve ever wanted to do out there’s in here. 20 chapters of ‘em.

But I’m not going to tell you any more about it. Just buy it and enjoy, OK?

It’s published by Random House Struik. Buy it here.

Willie Olivier’s essential reference work deserves a place on every South African’s shelf. And it certainly ought to be in every tourism professional’s library.

You see, the only way to really see a place is to walk - and South Africa must have some of the best walking in the world. (I’ll never forget the 10 minute telephone conversation I once had with a friend who’d just come back from ten days tramping in New Zealand: “Martin,” he told me, “in ten days walking I only saw ten species of birds.” I’d been sitting on my swing - and in my garden counted more than 20 species while we talked. Which says a lot: both about South Africa and about our conversation).

Walking is a growing activity and in these difficult times, I predict it’s going to grow even more. It’s cheap and you get huge bang for your bucks - and I’d say that on the scale of totally stressed to totally relaxed, an hour’s good (and not necessarily even difficult) walking is equal to a whole weekend away.

And what’s good about this book is that it makes walking accessible. Of course it begins with all the obvious dos and don’ts, and of course there aren’t nearly enough illustrations (but how can their be?), but the meat of the book is in the description of the trails. Mr. Olivier has described over 250 of them, each beginning with a summary of things like length, facilities and activities. And don’t be fooled into thinking that all walks are days-long slogs with a heavy and unpleasant pack on your back: many of the entries describe shorter walks that should appeal to everyone.

The attraction of this book is finding the walks that’ll suit you: I love kicking back and paging through Hiking Trails of South Africa and dreaming about my next adventure…

It’s published by Random House Struik. Buy it here.

Want to read a gentle, poignant novel about how an old man gets in touch with his emotions years after having suffered as a child?

Download it here: Belthar’s Garden (and please feel free to tell your friends to download it, too. Or pass it on to your friends. Just remember - you can send it, swap it, read it, copy it and so forth, but you can’t change it in any way, and you have to attribute it to me - Martin Hatchuel. You have to tell ‘em I’m the author. That’s what the Creative Commons license means).

Belthar’s Garden by Martin Hatchuel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 South Africa License.

whl.travel offers accommodation and attractions reservations for all - and in many countries, too. It’s also a great example of responsible tourism that helps to bring small businesses into the online world. Visitwhl.travel’s Garden Route page here (and you can navigate to other parts of the world from there).

There are articles about the Windspire here  - and it’s produced by Mariah Power