Durban - Having spent the night in a restored church, and a morning being pampered at a spa, I felt so chilled it seemed impossible to unwind further. That was until I checked in at Sheltered Vale, six kilometres from Rosetta in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.
Sitting on the cottage stoep, surrounded by venerable old trees, with a view over pastures, wooded areas, a large bass dam and distant hills, while a few friendly dogs waited with hopeful eyes that a walk was in the offing, was sheer bliss.
British firm Waitrose chose a field on this farm for the filming of its advertisement The Waitrose Picnic, in 2007.
Douglas Morris, son of Sheltered Vale owners Ian and Barbara Morris, said at that time the supermarket chain had a huge quilt (picnic blanket) crafted in Scotland. They then sourced 300 local extras to play the role of picnickers. Douglas’s young niece, Lourenza Nichols, was chosen as one of the children who ran down the hillside towards the dam in a depiction of the delights of such a family outing.
Sheltered Vale’s main sandstone house, with 50cm thick walls, dates back to 1912, and its extensive, park-like gardens are one of the major attractions of a stay here.
The beautifully manicured grounds, with charming water features and statuettes, are the work of Barbara who, over 29 years, has nurtured them to such an extent that it has often been chosen as an Open Garden. According to Douglas, about five years ago they had attracted visitors from Kew Gardens and New York, during such a display.
In due course, the family plan to introduce small buck and perhaps a couple of zebras at the bottom end of the garden for the pleasure of visitors’ children.
Sheltered Vale (405ha) is part of a 1 214ha estate, comprising three farms. It has two large bass dams, and the trout dam – on the neighbouring Rosetta farm – is very popular during the Bell’s Corporate Trophy Challenge.
Each of the three spacious self-catering cottages, reached via winding stone paths through the trees, has a splendid view. There is a tennis court, while those feeling active can stretch their legs on long walks through lovely countryside, which includes 6km of Mooi River frontage. The small Mooi River Falls tumble down on a distant boundary of the farm.
Sheltered Vale began life in 1911 as a stock farm, belonging to Edward Downing. His prize herd of cows wandered where Barbara now has her gardens.
In a brochure put out by Downing to show how valuable his stock was, the visitor learns that each Wednesday every cow was weighed, and its special feed revised, dependant on the milk it yielded.
There was space for 100 cows in separate stalls, milked by a Lawrence Gillies milking machine, as Downing did not approve of hand-milking.
Telling of the milk yield, the brochure mentions one four-year-old giving 40 bottles of milk a day. A cow called Snowdrop’s highest yield for one day was 64lbs, and during the first 16 weeks after calving she produced a prodigious 5 148 and a half lbs of milk; having to be milked and fed every six hours, i.e. four times a day.
A young bull, imported from America, won first prize at the New York State Fair for five years – just one of a string of awards. Bulls sported such names as Aaggie Cornucopia Johanna Lad!
There were also 600 Rambouillet merino sheep; thoroughbred horses; and 150 pure-bred white leghorn pullets, on the farm. Twenty hectares were under potatoes, while 101ha were used to grow stock feed for the winter. Nowadays the farm grows maize only, with mielie fields marching into the distance.
In the late afternoon, I took a walk down to the distant bass dam. At sunset, a flock of Egyptian geese arrived amid much honking; a couple of darters dived the waters; and a family of moorhen with eight chicks took off in a flurry at my approach along the shoreline.
The dogs were in raptures, having been rewarded with that much sought-after walk they had been pleading for.
Everyone was content.
l Contact: 033 267 7419; 082 929 3698; e-mail: [email protected] - Sunday Tribune