This is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Yes, I do realise that I say this fairly often, but this really is spectacular. I just loooooooove the West Coast. There are hundreds of miles of sandy beaches with only the rough Atlantic waves and baby seals about – just plain perfect.

We spent a weekend with my deevine sister-in-law and nieces in Jakkalsfontein, a private nature reserve with just a few houses dotted about, on this magnificent coast and I shed a tear when we left. Hubby and I could spend hours just sitting there looking at the sea and surf, birds and beasts, sun and moon, sigh I could go on and on!

Jakkalsfontein is a very special place. The nature reserve is home to amongst other animals, Duikers and other small buck, ostriches, tortoises, snakes (yes, bitey-not-so-nice-ones too!) and many birds, as well as many varieties of plants. The houses have been built to disappear into the landscape rather than stick out like a sore thumb.

The coastline there is superb. Like I said before, miles of beach and no-one there. We walked with the dogs for miles and the only living things we saw were seals and birds. It isn’t always possible to swim in the sea at Jakkals as the surf can be very strong – we’ve all had the fun of scooping one dog or another out of the waves, thank you Maurice!

Maurice, just in case I haven’t mentioned this before, is the most beautiful sausage dog on earth (I’m at it again!). He is just soooooo cute. Not an active brain cell about, this boy is all beauty no brains, but please don’t tell him I said so. Meggy, his older golden retriever sister, got all the brains, and she’s beautiful too.


But back to Jakkals and the weekend with my deevine in-laws. Cath, Anna and Maya, and Joerg and I had a great time together and Cath’s parents cooked a deevine Lamb Tomato Bredie for us when we arrived – recipe will follow I promise. We had a braai together the following day as per usual – as they say, when in Souf Efrica...

Sadly the week end passed by far more quickly than we would have liked. They get to go back all the time – The Lucky Ones is what they will be called from now on! We’ll just have to go back sometime and visit this special place with these special people again. We love you guys and miss you and can’t wait to see you again soooooooon.