My girlfriend and I came upon the gate to Crags Country Lodge surprisingly quickly after turning off the N2 about a quarter of an hour beyond Plettenberg Bay on the way to Gqeberha. It was dark, we were surrounded by tall trees and I expected something of a drive through the forest till we reached reception but, no, it was right there. All in all, it was about 400m from the freeway and I worried that our sleep would be disturbed by trucks hurtling by through the night.
I couldn’t have been more wrong: if anything the muted sound of traffic was rather calming...
much like the susurration of surf when your hotel’s right on the beach. Our two-night stay, a joy in every regard, came about by happy chance. It was about an hour before closing time at the WTM Africa travel trade show in Cape Town in April that a friend from Sedgefield introduced me to Tracy Degumois on the Garden Route & Klein Karoo stand.
She was representing a new country house in The Crags, she said, and would I like to visit? It happened I was planning a midweek roadtrip to the area with Rose-mariè as prelude to the annual Knysna Oyster Festival 21-30 June ( www.knysnaoysterfestival.co.
za ) and one prospective accommodation host had just cancelled. No problem, said Tracy, and would you like to have dinner with us? Boy, are we glad I said “Yes”! Here’s my first piece of advice about Crags Country Lodge: stay for at least two nights and make NO plans to eat out. When you finally leave the property, you.
