Home Town Through Outsider Eyes

It has to be said that we see more of many of our far-flung network of friends and family now that we live in a little, out-of-the-way town than we ever did when we lived in the big smoke.

Jacaranda season - Chief Mgiyeni Khumalo street becomes a lilac dell

Some, bless them, make the journey east over the escarpment specially to see us but an astonishingly large portion visit the area regularly anyway, and naturally drop in to while away an hour or a few days with us.

Lekker! (an Afrikaans word difficult to translate but usually uttered with glee, approbation and a great deal of satisfaction.  You get the drift.) Our home at times has a revolving door, spitting out ex-pat-now-Australians as it envelops Joburgers. Along with a birdsighting list, we should have an Origins list, which this year alone includes Australians, Yanks, Brits, Joburgers, Durbanites and more ranging from 11 years of age to 77 and with diverse interests. 

And that's before we include the guests we've hosted in our small accommodation venture, so you can imagine the bustle of busyness in which we live. Exhausting indeed but always so special to retie those friendship knots more firmly and to meet an assortment of lovely people for the first time.

Water, agriculture and town all in one view

The second duty of hosting after ensuring guests are comfortably ensconced with a glass of wine is, of course, to play area travel guide.  Kruger, naturally, generally tops the list (but if ONE more visitor returns with tales of seeing the Big 5 before lunch, travelling the same road we've driven ruts into in our regular vain attempts to do the same, they will check out sooner than planned!)

And going to Mbombela Stadium to watch rugby will never be the same again after watching SA-Argentina with the Karlsson mob, supplemented by running into a few of Him Outdoors' old rugby mates who'd travelled all the way from Hartebeespoort to support the Boks.

Unexpectedly, it was the Wobblie's eating and drinking tour of White River town that opened our eyes to the lovely places under our noses that we haven't popped into yet.  Dad's honeymoon with Val had us in stitches, as the Lovebirds posted photograph after photograph onto Facebook (yes, really!) of them washing samoosas down with a craft beer at Phat Boys and buying game pies, game pate and naartjie preserve at Carmel (which they swear has the best cake in town). Until they went to Sip and were entranced by the Alice in Wonderland decor and decadent pastries.

And it wasn't just the gourmand offerings, either. Rae Kirton from Dynamic Vision spent ages repairing Dad's spectacles and refused to charge.  Overall, the travelling Wobblies fell head over heels in love with White River.  The people, the friendliness they encountered everywhere, the beauty, pace of life and the myriad of special little offerings, nooks and crannies that make up the town.  They commented on how clean the main street was and how much they enjoyed being able to wander on foot from one coffee shop to the next, browsing at all the shops in between.

Listening to their excited recounting of the day's adventures every evening for a week was a sharp reminder about how easily we are blinkered to our closest surrounds.  It's time to ramp out of the rut and utilise more of what's in our backyard instead of travelling the same old path.