Bridget Hilton-Barber : Unspoilt places
Have you noticed how we seem to be caught in the frenzied grip of an Action Adventure trend? You’ve got no cred unless you rafted raging whitewaters, conquered some lofty peak or flung yourself off a silly bridge with an elastic band tied around your ankle? It’s impossible to go on a simple weekend away without dragging along a host of rugged accessories – mountain bikes, absailing ropes, survival manuals, wet suits, rhino lashers. Quick, someone call Bambi. We are under terrible siege from the Camel Man mindset.
Hunting, shooting, fishing? Whatever happened to eating, sleeping, reading? The gentle country ramble has been replaced by the action adventure safari. And it’s left more than a handful of us hankering for the kind of places where you can, well, just lie around doing zip all and not feel guilty.
Rather pack a good book and your favourite cardigan and head for Hulala Lakeside Lodge in Mpumulanga. Lying between White River and Hazyview, it’s a three-and-a-half hour hop from Jo’burg (no, you don’t need a 4×4) and one of an increasingly rare breed of fine, traditional country hotels.
Set among giant granite boulders on the spur of a pine-fringed lake, Hulala is no bootcamp-style bush destination. This, my friends, is the discerning world of manicured rose gardens, exquisite country cuisine, crackling log fires and gentle lakeside strolls – a welcome return to the days when horses sweated, men perspired and women glowed; the sort of place for people who would rather watch Howards End than Cliffhanger.
Here you can safely forget the horror of being jostled about in a dusty landrover or landing bottom first on a sharp rock while river- rafting. The most you will be expected to do is rearrange your facial expression according to the plot of the book you are reading at pool’s edge.
Yes, at last, a place for the gentle folk from the Wooly Jumper School of Outdoor Adventure – those who subscribe to the afternoon nap, the 10-minute walk to work up an appetite and that exhilarating search for exactly the right spot on the pooldeck. Extremists can venture lazily forth, Edwardian style, in the two-seater pedallos on the lake.
The other nice thing about Hulala is that it has studiously avoided the aesthetic pitfalls into which most country hotels fall. The rooms do not look like they’ve been decorated by Beatrix Potter or some ethno-fabric freak. The rooms are understated, spacious and gracious. The luxury suites all have private patios with lake views. Hulala’s brochure recommends that you wake early “at least once” to see the early morning mist steaming sexily off the lake.
It also steams sexily off the ice-buckets on your table in the dining room. The food at Hulala is superb. As you push a silver knife through the belly of a delicately flavoured trout, it’s hard not to spare a thought for those rugged types nibbling on dehydrated biscuits in some wilderness. And as you saunter back to your room it is difficult to stifle a snigger at the thought that you could have been in a tent with stones pressing against your kidneys. Aaah, Hulala. Remember the magic word next time someone asks you on a Camel man weekend.