The last thing I imagined myself doing on a luxurious adults’ only weekend away at one of the most exclusive properties in the world was burpees on the beach at sun rise. When we checked into our private castle and saw our giant puffy white bed, nestled in the lap of interior designed luxury, looking out onto one of South Africa’s most spectacular beaches, I rather imagined a long and lazy lie in watching dolphins playing in the surf.
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For us, travel is all about the destination rather than the accommodation. We focus on the activities and exploring the location and things to do in an area rather than what bed we sleep in. However, there are certain places with such unique accommodation that the bed becomes the destination all in itself.
We put together this list of weird and wonderful places to stay in the Garden Route with a delightfully quirky road trip in mind – starting at Port Elizabeth and ending in Cape Town. It would take 12-14 days to experience one of the most beautiful parts of the world in the most unique and memorable way and combining all these peculiar places to stay into one trip would be quite frankly phenomenal.
We are led silently in single file down a dark corridor and ushered into a small office. The door clicks shut behind us, locking our family into the room. We stand in a quiet huddle, staring at the ominous chalk outline in the shape of a fallen human body on the middle of the floor. My heart is pounding and my first instinct is to pat my pocket for my phone, but it’s not there – they took everything from us before locking us in.
We look around – besides the body outline, it looks like a normal office. Suddenly, a raspy voice crackles over a loud speaker telling us about the murder that happened here. He explains that our only chance of escape is to solve the heinous crime in under one hour. There is a large blank TV screen on the wall that suddenly flashes with a white number 60:00….59.59…..59.58…..the countdown has started!
Where do we even begin?
What is it with camping? Why do people spend a small fortune buying equipment to live rough in the bush when they have a solid roof over their heads and a comfy bed at home?
Well, according to Google there are many reasons. I particularly liked Tim Dowling from The Guardian’s take on it – “Perhaps it’s because camping is to living as cooking is to barbecuing. It’s basically an outdoor version of housekeeping. There is something so primally satisfying about escaping from our reliance on infrastructure that it turns the most tedious chore into an adventure. Suddenly making toast is interesting, just because it’s so hard.”
For us, getting far away from civilisation into the wild is the absolute best way to unwind, destress and enjoy real quality family time together without technology. I have to confess though that the actual camping bit does not entirely float my boat. A resounding “Yes Please” to counting the stars at night, sharing stories around a campfire, long hikes and afternoon naps under the trees. But “Hell No” to poxy shared ablutions, leaky tents, deflating mattresses and noisy neighbours.
Despite the drawbacks, we seem to have become quite adept at camping (this has been our most financially viable mode of accommodation since we invested in making memories on our cross global expedition to the Canadian Rockies). I am even slightly at risk of becoming a happy camper. But there is still a very large part of me that prefers to swap the “c” for “gl”, to mitigate the roughness of living wild with a little bit of creature comfort and a lot less PT.
Glamping (glamorous camping) can be very expensive, in fact it’s quite easy to spend more to stay in a fancy tent than under a real roof. But we have discovered quite a few affordable glamping destinations – places in beautifully wild locations that have permanent tents with proper beds and built in lighting. Where you get to experience the real outdoors, up close and personal with Mother Nature, but still get a good night’s sleep. Where you don’t have to schlep half your house along and spend hours constructing a temporary abode but where you can still build a campfire and sleep with only a thin layer of canvas between you and the world.
There is something truly magical that lives in-between the oxygen particles in forest air. Because you can’t see it, it’s hard to put your finger on. But as soon as you start to breathe in the air, a sense of peace and oneness with the world overcomes you. This ethereal sense of wellness becomes more concentrated the larger the trees and the bigger and older the forest. Which is why we chose to start our year deep in the middle of the Knysna forest.
