Where the Wild Things Grow

In today’s busy, noisy, hectic pace of life, we found that many couples seek accommodation for just two, where they can spend time with each other in solitude and privacy. The unpretentious barn style buildings sit quietly on the earth, comfortable in the rural farming environment of the eastern Free State Highlands. Built from hand hewn sandstone blocks, wood, corrugated iron, the exteriors belie the indulgent luxury of the interior of the cottages.

Here the un-plastered sandstone block walls have been lime washed so they are tactile, velvety, the high beamed ceilings with exposed wooden beams create balance and space, cement painted floors and wood burning combustion fires all add to the SkyWind experience.

 A kitchen fully equipped with gas stove, good sized fridge, nice cutlery and crockery, island preparation and seating area, weber braai for nights of braaing under stars to take your breath away.

 Full moon is just as awesome, rising like a great golden orb over the mountains, the sky filled with light that seeps, like a golden trespasser, into hidden valleys and lights up the great sandstone buttresses of the Eastern Free State to the Maluti Mountains beyond. To sit in the silence and vastness on the verandas and patios of the SkyWind Self catering Cottages and watch as the moon floats through the sky, there is a quietening of the soul, an easing of daily pressures and responsibilities. Drift away on a moon beam, let all the petty problems of daily life drift away.

 Waking mornings in the king size bed dressed in beautiful percale linen with the awesome view across the valley to the Maluti Mountains beyond. 

And, around the cottages, between the helichchrysum adoratissimum planted in the past autumn, we have been planting beautiful wild flowers, gently dug up from all points of Spitskop where they grow, carried with care and planted with love.Those wild flowers that have started to grow and bloom around the cottages are being watered and tended, as we learn with them their story, what they look like in bloom, what is attracted to them and what magical beautiful healing properties lie in their stunning flowers, leaves and roots. Indeed we are blown away by the massive healing potential in these wild flower, shrubs and herbs.There have been no crops planted on Spitskop since we came here in 2002, and hence no chemical fertilizers or vigorous eradication of “weeds” with chemical herbicides, and the stunning wild plants are being left to grow and multiply in beautiful profusion in the Sanctuary that is Amohela ho Spitskop.