Chris does Hazyview
Name: Chris Harvie
Web addresses: www.chrisharvie.com; Rissington Inn
Region: Hazyview, Mpumalanga, in the Sabie River Valley, at the foot of the Great Escarpment.
Weekday breakfast: Ellies offers just that. Breakfast with the elephants at Elephant Whispers. Before or after your pachyderm-sized fry-up, you can book an interaction with the giants of the forest and at the right time of day, join in, muck out, brush their hair or even ride them.
Date night ideas: What’s a date without roses? Hazyview’s most romantic corner is a restaurant on a riverbank, deep in a rose farm. Roses are Red, especially at Summerfields. Check beforehand to see whether they are doing dinner down by the river or in the funky open-plan-kitchen-cum-restaurant at the top of the hill.
Local midweek eatery: Has to be Rissington Inn, but then I am biased. I own it. Rissington has a cheerful, easy-going atmosphere (and owner, most of the time) and a broad-ranging menu, day and night. The crocodile curry, from locally sourced ingredients (!) is a particular favourite but there’s a light meal or full à la carte menu – and a wonderful view and colourful gardens – available all day every day.
Shopping: The Perry’s Bridge Shopping Centre on the corner of the Sabie Road houses a range of somethings for every taste and every lack thereof. There are stuffed toys and gimmicks at The Corner Shop, homemade Belgian chocolates at Shautany Chocolates and there’s a Rogue Leather shop to stock up on sturdy hats, boots and bags for your safari. Just to mention a few.
Best coffee: There’s no competition here. Hazyview grows fine Arabica and our local Sabie Valley Coffee, especially the Bushveld Blend, is popular countrywide. For a short but gripping insight into the growing and preparing of coffee (or for a very good lunch under the trees on the riverbank) visit the Sabie Valley Coffee Shop 12km out of town on the Sabie road. You’ll never drink chicory again.
Best sushi: This is the Lowveld, not Tokyo. We don’t offer raw fish. Just raw curios (see below) and raw meat. All our butchers make fine biltong, but the prize probably goes to the De Rust Butchery, hidden away in an unlikely spot in the Excel garage on the corner of the R40 White River road.
Best sundowners: Hippo Hollow on the banks of the river, for a gin and tonic within tantalisingly easy reach of a pod of those eponymous aquatic creatures as they yawn and grunt in the gathering dusk. But we wake up early here, so why not climb the Nyongane boulder, behind the airfield, instead, and watch, Amarula-laced coffee in hand, as the sun comes up over the game reserve?
Best market: If you prefer your curios raw, visit the local Shangaan ladies under the giant lapha on the traffic circle in the middle of town. The road out towards Skukuza is also lined with kilometre-long washing lines draped with batiks of every possible shape, size and design. The preponderance of guinea fowls suits the area and matches the panicked clucking of the valley’s dawn chorus. And there’s always the more formal informality of the Shangana Cultural Village, the hill on the Graskop road.
Best escape from the crowds: The Kruger National Park. Where else? It is only a 10-minute drive from Hazyview to the newish Phabeni Gate, leading directly to some of the best game-viewing in the park. Leopards, rhinos, wild dogs and, more recently, cheetah in abundance.
One must-do / must-visit: To top it all, get the aerial view of Hazyview and the Sabie River Valley with Wally, our magnificent man in his flying machine. Sweeping through the not-so hazy air and low over the farmlands, this is a surprisingly affordable way to see Hazyview the way the numerous purple-crested turacos see it.
Best child friendly restaurant: The Fick family have been running the Numbi Hotel since before the rinderpest and their stable of restaurants increases concomitantly with their offspring. Daughter Danee runs the excellent Pioneers Restaurant in Hazyview’s Rendezvous centre. In the finest traditions of the great South African steakhouse, her portions are meaty, generous and broadly unbothered by vegetables. The peri-peri chicken livers take a lot of beating and the secret basting on the steak adds a certain je-ne-sais-quoi. And you can pack the children away in a hidden games room while you get stuck into the contents of the vast and well-stocked chilled cellar.
Top family friendly activity: Hazyview is an adrenalin-junkie’s paradise. There’s rafting, kayaking, kloofing, zip-lining, two golf-courses, hot air ballooning, the Skyway Trail, elephant-, horse- and quadbike-riding. There’s birding, butterflying, a snake park and safaris into the Kruger National Park. How can we choose one? Oh, OK, maybe the Skyway Trail, because that’s where I saw my Narina Trogon.
Stay near Kruger
If you''re looking for comfortable accommodation near Kruger, then Rissington Inn (owned by Chris Harvie) is for you.
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Rissington Inn is an award-winning, affordable country lodge in the heart of the Lowveld. Stylish, relaxed and informal, the inn is the perfect stopover on the way to the game reserves and an ideal base from which to explore all that Mpumalanga has to offer.
About the blogger
Chris Harvie - in real life - is a Lowveld hotelier of thirty years'' standing. Having cut his tourism teeth in some of South Africa''s finest hotels he founded Rissington Inn, in Hazyview, in 1995. In the parallel universe, however, he is a renowned author, inveterate traveller and freelance travel writer with an insider''s view of the industry he loves. Often amusing, occasionally caustic and always entertaining, Chris can be relied upon to dig up an unusual tale and to spin it with consummate skill.