The revived farm hovers around the late 19th century, just before electricity and motor vehicles changed everything. My first stop is the Cape Dutch farmhouse, which is surprisingly fine: piano in the parlour, four-poster bed and William Morris wallpaper in the main bedroom.
Inside Soetmelksvlei.Credit:
The detail is superb, from the antique Lee Enfield rifles on the office wall to the embroidered heritage textiles in the bedrooms. The functioning kitchen has gadgets newfangled in their day, such as cast-iron fruit peelers and a coffee grinder.
So far this is my kind of farm, where I can talk history with costumed staff members and imagine myself teleported to another era without its nasty bits.
Yet everything is fully functional at Soetmelksvlei. Bread is baked in the farmhouse kitchen and offered to visitors slathered in farm-churned butter.
The wheat used to make the bread comes from a recreation of a period water mill. The kraal-like courtyard outside the farmhouse is surrounded by functioning stables and workshops.
Kids will enjoy the regular activities such as milking cows, churning milk to separate the cream, and clambering up haystacks. These are farm activities that make even me smile.
I’m particularly fascinated by the blacksmith’s workshop, where blacksmiths use traditional methods to make farm implements and wagons. I spend a good half hour talking to chatty blacksmith Dan Devonshire about how wagon wheels are made, as he produces old-fashioned drill nails on the fire.
Adjacent farm buildings have been turned into a wonderful cabinet of curiosities, where I inspect an apothecary’s chest, model ships, stuffed animal heads and old maps.
The highlight is a Voortrekker-covered ox wagon complete with all its worldly goods: mattresses, pillows, baskets, buckets, lamps, stools, fishing rods, wooden chests and a wine barrel. It looks as if it’s ready to lurch out across the grasslands.
Later I head for lunch in the Old Stables, among the oldest surviving buildings on the farm. The walls are hung with old farming equipment, and water bottles cool in a drinking trough. Meat is being roasted and cauldrons of stew bubble in the fireplace.
This is my kind of farm. I haven’t been bitten, muddied or pestered by flies. But I’ve learnt plenty, and enjoyed a mighty fine morning.
THE DETAILS
TOUR
Soetmelksvlei costs ZAR350 ($30) or ZAR200 for children and is open Wednesday to Sunday. It’s part of Babylonstoren, which has several accommodation options and restaurants and other attractions including a cellar door and magnificent gardens. See babylonstoren.com
FLY
Qantas flies from Sydney to Johannesburg with onwards connections on South African Airways to Cape Town. See qantas.com
