After breakfast, time for action - you're going on a 2-day pony trek. Your are show, by the field ranger, the basics of preparing your trusted steed for the ride, set out, holding your reigns firmly, and get your first impression of the vastness that is Anysberg.
Your guides point out various fynbos wonders, and darting klipspringers. We also pass a troop of elegant gemsbok who gaze at us quietly. The reserve's 60 000 hectares spread out around us. We're alone. We see no other signs of human habitation or activity, just seemingly endless mountains and fields of fynbos.
Night time. Around a crackling fire at our bush camp we wait expectantly for Willem's wife's roosterkoek to bake (you can order it beforehand). The smell of the potjie promising wonderful gastromic pleasures. We sip port - it's not that cold, but it feels like just the thing to be doing on this night out in the open.
Then it's time to go to bed, under the stars. The milky-way is double thick cream tonight, and you're amazed that it's the same sky you see from your window in the city.
The next morning, the smell of coffee gets you out of the sleeping bag.
We stop by a rock art site. The drawings make compelling viewing. For a second you're transported 10, 20 000 years back and the finely etched drawings recall the artists and their world. It's like coming upon treasure. It is treasure, and the reserve only allows guided viewings.
Back at the cottages there's a cement dam to wash the Karoo dust off. Then it's time to say our good-byes, knowing that we've left behind something that's being taken care of. So we can come back.
Bookings
Cape Nature at tel +27 861 227 362 8873
