The Rissington Rag - September 2025

Welcome to the September 2025 Rissington Rag as we continue our celebration of 30 years of Rissington with a few more stories and a photo shoot. Enjoy the new pictures dotted around this Rag.  There’s also a generous competition.

South Africans really are the friendliest people in the world

We had the daughter of old friends staying a couple of months ago. A lively and inspiring life-enthusiast in her early twenties, she headed off from Rissington for a day out up the Blyde River Canyon and, just before the entrance to the Three Rondavels viewpoint, unexpectedly slid off the road and into the long grass on the verge.

This is where it could all have gone horribly wrong. A couple of passing male youths stopped and offered to help her. They were very friendly (she says) and called the police at nearby Dwarsloop, offering to stay with her until they arrived. A cynic would say that this might have been a worrying development and that anyway the police would take hours to get there, but ten minutes later a SAPS officer arrived. Worried about the young lady and any possible injuries she might have incurred, the policeman called an ambulance which turned up pretty promptly as well.

In the meantime, the guest had, herself, called Avis, who started to make plans for the vehicle to be collected and for her to be driven to the nearest Avis office in Hoedspruit to collect a new car. While they waited for this to play out, the ambulancemen, having established that the young driver was uninjured and not to be outdone in the helpfulness stakes, then off their own bats drove her to the Three Rondavels to see the view “because otherwise (she) wouldn’t have seen it”.

A tow-truck arrived an hour or so later and drove my friends’ daughter to Hoedspruit and a new car in which she duly drove herself through Bushbuckridge and back to Rissington, arriving just after dark. So many good Samaritans and a great South African story.

They even talk to their cars …

A regular South African guest turned up the other day in a new car. A brand-new, bright-red Chinese-made JAC bakkie/pick-up/ute. Yes, I have just been to Australia, where they are called ‘utes’. It’s a whole new language: servo (service station), bowlo (bowls club), pokies (slot machines), arvo (afternoon) and so it goes on. Dunny, kindy, sunnies, rego, esky, thongs (not what you think), Maccas (yes, it’s everywhere), snags in swags (hotdogs!) … I could go on forever.

Anyway, I digress. So, our guest was South African and driving a bakkie. He was smartly dressed in a camel-coloured overcoat and black fedora with his lady alongside him in the passenger seat. It was clear from his beaming white-toothed smile that he loved his car, so I thought I would compliment him on it.

Me: That is a very fine vehicle you have there, sir!

Bakkie-Driver in Camel Coat: Thank you.

Me: Do you love it?

BDICC: I do. I do. I absolutely love it. I think it is very beautiful, like my wife.

Me: It certainly is. It must also be very strong. (I was not intenionally implying that his wife was strong, although she clearly was quite powerful.)

BDICC: It is very very very strong. And do you know you can talk to it?

Me: Really? What do you say to it? Do you tell it that it is beautiful?

BDICC: No, I just shout “Make a Call!”

The (slightly nasal English-accented) Voice of the Vehicle emanating from his near left: Who would you like to call?

BDICC (looking intensely at the dash): Oh no sorry My Boss. I don’t want to call anyone now.

The Vehicle: I can’t understand you. Who would you like to call?

BDICC (flustered): I don’t want to call anyone now, My Boss. Sorry for the trouble.

A beeping noise emanated from the dash as the Voice of the Vehicle switched itself off after the intrusion. The driver looked mightily relieved

What a lovely story. Totally true, I promise.

Now, let’s talk about the weather

I know I missed winter last year when I was away with my tent but this year July seemed particularly cold at night. The days, though, are beautiful throughout the winter with clear blue skies every single morning and temperatures rising to between 25 and 30 degrees during the day. There’s no humidity and minimal risk of sunburn if you are even vaguely sensible.

One guest has (politely) commented that our bathrooms are not very winter-friendly and suggested underfloor heating but, in reality, all our rooms have aircon which is currently cranked up to 30 degrees of heat in all the rooms and the beds are decked with great duvets and blankets. We really only have about 20 cold nights in the year and what better way to start the days that follow them than with a hot outside shower in the chilly bright morning sun?

I think as South Africans we live in a bizarre sort of denial about our climate. Thus our homes have no central heating or anything like that. It's fine in Hazyview when cold days are so few and we can still sit in the winter sun to warm up but Cape Town is another story. I was there for 10 consecutive cold days recently and the people seemed literally to be hibernating, huddled over portable heaters. And that cold winter wind! It never stops! Their summers are beautiful though.

I don’t think underfloor heating (or heated towel rails) are really going to crack it here in Mpumalanga, do you? The coldest it gets in the middle of the night is eight degrees. It’s not exactly terminal. 

Plus there’s always breakfast in the sun. We have also had people swimming almost every day of the winter, then turning the full gecko and tanning by the pool to dry off.

Capetonians, on the other hand, need to get real and take precautions if they're planning to stay so close to Antarctica and survive the winters!

An icon remembered

Many people who regularly visit Rissington had also previously been guests at the former Cybele Forest Lodge, between Hazyview and White River, where I worked between 1983 and 1994. Cybele closed its doors about ten years ago and owner Rupert Jeffries died two years ago. On 30th July this year – a month ago – we lost Rupert’s wife Barbara, a total hero, the true face of Cybele and someone I had known since I was five years old.

Barbara taught me everything I know about running a hotel – absolutely everything – and was the trailblazer that nurtured and perfected the South African country lodge hotel, a genre for which this country is deservedly famous and into which Rissington fits firmly. Many members of Team Rissington worked for Barbara over the years and she was a huge inspiration to all of them and to many many more.

Hamba kahle, Barbara. Your lively joyful unforgettable voice has fallen silent. You were an inspiration and you are sorely missed.

The modern world

I first worked with Barbara in the days of the telex and the party-line telephone on which we turned a handle to get hold of the exchange and then ask to be put through to a number. To phone overseas we used to have to book a call in advance. The operator would get hold of the foreign number and then call back, saying: "Ons het Londen op die lyn” – we have London on the line. It seemed like a piece of magic.

Now, 40 years later, we are all on-edge about the impact of AI and the accommodation and travel industries are not exempt from this. Tour operators and travel-writers are justifiably concerned that their jobs will become redundant, although one of the main faults of AI when it comes to travel planning is that it doesn’t keep up-to-date and therefore spills out a lot of old, stale information. Put in ‘Top Ten Restaurants in Cape Town’ for example and the chances are it will suggest at least one or two restaurants that closed or moved long ago.

As far as hotels are concerned, AI is not really causing any major problems. In fact, it offers opportunities when it comes to information presentation and design. It can however be unreliable on the marketing front as Grant, a friend of mine from Hazyview and now living in the UK, discovered when he ran Rissington past Chat GPT and it threw out this photo and blurb (left). 

We all remember the scene with Mrs Richards in the Fawlty Towers ‘Communications Problems’ episode. As Basil said: “You can see the sea. It’s over there between the land and the sky”. But of course, not at Rissington. Nor can you see “herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically’’ although we did have once have one here for a couple of weeks. And some zebra too. (It's actually a picture of Arniston from a Rag competition earlier in the year - but what a bad mistake.)

For a reminder of what can be seen from a Torquay hotel window, here’s Basil again. Click on the link. It will make your day : BASIL FAWLTY AND MRS RICHARDS

According to IMDb, John Cleese always said that Mrs Richards was his favourite character in the series. Many years ago, Cleese stayed with us at Cybele, my alma mater as above, for ten days. It was a great challenge for us - a bunch of hoteliers trying desperately not to be anything like Basil Fawlty. We often failed. And still do...

We had a guest from Cape Town staying the other day who bemoaned the fact that we do not have access to Netflix on the TVs in our rooms. Long-term Rissington fans will remember how long it took me to agree to put televisions in at all.

I pointed out to her that she had a huge bouquet of some fifty satellite television channels but she said that nobody in Cape Town watches DStv anymore and that she had forgotten how to use the remote. Sounds more like an operator error to me?

It’s all in the details:

We have been rebranding with our new ® for Rissington logos and here are couple of photos of just how smart that looks.

We have also bought new beds for a number of the rooms and we continue to work on the gardens.

We always take feedback very seriously indeed (although not seriously enough to put in underfloor heating or heated towel rails). We have added a few more interesting dishes to the menus and we have tweaked our ever-popular biscuits in the rooms. Any other suggestions welcome!

As usual, we ask our guests to be considerate about not hanging their underwear out to dry on the stoeps, especially in the rooms by the gate as it is a very questionable first impression. And also please not to break the loo seats. I am sure they don’t break them at home!

One of the oddest comments this week was that the shower floors are slippery. I mean, I ask you. Really!? But just wait until you see the signs in the next paragraph. …

Saving the planet. And Australia.

After my recent Antipodean trip where I hired and drove a hybrid car for the first time, I am wondering how long it will be before we have to put in a recharging facility for fully electric vehicles at Rissington, although South Africa is certainly lagging behind on that front. I do find the stalker-like silence of electric cars a little unnerving though. I never knew whether my hired RAV4 was on or off and I felt that I should play loud music – obviously Genesis, the greatest rock band on earth; maybe singing Follow you, Follow me, for the irony – to warn pedestrians that we were coming. Although, because this was Australia, there were no jaywalkers anyway. I have never seen such an obedient country. There are signs everywhere. Even on the ski-runs. I couldn’t help thinking that the majority of accidents were probably caused by people distracted by the long wordy signs or baffled by the meaning of the pictures!

Never make the mistake, though, as I have done in recent Rags, of talking about your intention to put in solar power at your home or place of work. You are heading straight for the “My solar panels are bigger than yours” conversation, which never ends. Or not until they have shown you the installation itself or photos of it, demonstrated how they can talk to it on their phone and shown you numerous graphs, buttons and apps which enable them to monitor their battery usage and the minutes of power remaining before the system bombs out due to overcast weather, leaving them stranded in a WiFi-less mediaeval world of candles and cold water.

Inn-Spirations – the Spa at Rissington

The Rissington Spa is operating at full tilt, so I would recommend booking a treatment in advance to be sure of a spot. Charlotte has nine people booked for the day on which I am typing this. It is a wonderful innovation for us (and far more exciting than televisions or Netflix). We now even have bath robes and slippers available for those who would like them.

I had been resisting building a spa, as much as I had always resisted televisions, bath robes and slippers (and French fries) but I now have to say it is the most exciting thing to happen to us since the new swimming pool. And I am sure no-one will pinch the robes. After all, we have never lost a coffee machine and the Covid days have passed, when guests used to pour the contents of our shampoo and body lotion pumps into 2-litre Coke bottles, stash it in their bags and then come to the office for a refill.

Wandering around Rissington

The Rissington walking trail always affords interesting sightings and the bush camera also gives us some great insights into what is going on out there without us. Bruno stood totally astonished as a red duiker dived straight through the electric fence yesterday. Both dogs know that this is not possible without being zapped. They have tried it.

There are arrows on the trail, marking the route, and to my amusement, the other day, I met a couple from the Low Countries coming at me from the opposite direction of the arrows. I often vary my direction so I smiled at these two in their twenties and said it was “great to be doing the walk the wrong way around.”

Their answer, with a beaming smile:  "Yes – we are totally crazy!". Sure thing, I thought. Completely off the wall. Really living life on the edge!

Every now and then I also bump into a Rissington bicycle or two along the route, with guests on board. Remember to book your cycling next time as well. We have access to routes on neighbouring properties, giving us a good half-hour or full hour of cycling, with a guide from here. For those wanting to go further afield and on longer routes, we can transport bicycles for you to some excellent long trails around the mountains and waterfalls in Sabie or, for something completely different, there’s a relatively flat ride along the Kruger National Park fence – outside it – on the track from Phabeni Gate to Numbi Gate and back.

It’s all about marketing

The Rissington Rag is a piece of entertainment to keep us all in touch with each other but it is also obviously also about marketing to a certain extent. Good writing is an art and a very important one.

I was recently sent a lovely piece from Blackwood’s Magazine dated July 1969. It was an excerpt from a book written by a relation – Rupert Grayson. Uncle Rupe was born in 1897. I remember him well; a fascinating man who lived the most wonderfully exotic life and wrote about it absolutely beautifully in a couple of autobiographies. He was friends with the great and the good - and this particular excerpt was about his friendship with Rudyard Kipling.

It was, however, the magazine’s accompanying advertisement (left) that caught my eye.

Can you imagine this coming out today, with the sensitive views of Gen Z? I am not even sure that I fully understand it myself!

For more on Blackwood’s magazine look here: BLACKWOODS MAGAZINE

It doesn’t sound like my political cup of tea, but there were some impressive contributors. According to the link above, the controversial style of the magazine got it into trouble when, in 1821, John Scott, the editor of the ‘London Magazine’, fought a duel with Jonathan Henry Christie over libellous statements in the magazine. Scott was apparently shot and killed. Wow! Surely this is taking defending your honour to extremes?

Talking of Marketing

As I say above, we are celebrating our 30 years with a new series of photographs of Rissington, this time concentrating on some of the details which make Rissington so special. They will be going onto the website and into the Marketing Dropbox soon, so that anyone can use them. (Thanks to @theguyssa for the highly professional photo shoot as always.)

Keep an eye out for more on our Instagram and Facebook feeds as well. There’s always a good variety.

Join us and follow us here if you haven’t already done so.

RISSINGTON FACEBOOK

RISSINGTON INSTAGRAM 

After the September competition below, there will still be three more competitions this year on Social Media to celebrate our three decades. Free stays and more to be won.

Remember the current specials in place until 31 December 2025 to celebrate our 30th birthday:

For all Rag readers, but only if you are already on the Rissington Rag mailing list or if you already follow us and find the Rag on Instagram or Facebook, we are still offering you a 20% discount on your bed and breakfast for any number of stays during the remainder of 2025. The deal is not transferable and can be applied to new direct bookings only. It rises to a 30% discount if you stay for a week or more.

Spend your birthday here during 2025 and get a free night as long as you book for two nights or more but you MUST be here on the actual night of your birthday. (NB Deals may not be combined.)

In addition, as a last blast in our celebration year, we are offering FREE accommodation to Rag readers on two-night (or longer) stays between 24th November and 12th December 2025. You just need to pay R200 to cover your breakfast each day and you must have dinner in the restaurant every evening. You can’t say fairer than that.

Contact Philippa or Simphiwe on 082 327 6842 (call or WhatsApp) or email [email protected].

The Competitions – a huge prize to be won

We had a wide variety of interesting entries to our June competition asking for your memories of your favourite meal at Rissington. Here are a couple of the judge’s favourites:

We were seriously impressed to receive the first ever Rissington haiku from Andrea Rae:

Trout cheesecake and wine

At a picnic in the bush

Perfect harmony

And Lara Feakins managed to be almost equally poetic in prose and to describe a perfect Rissington dinner experience:

Our most memorable meal was the night we had no power, not from load shedding but from a fault on the line, which only added to our "Out of Africa" fantasy!

We had every intention of heading back to our room to shower before dinner, after a particularly hot January day, but fell in to the pool instead. We ended up seated in a mix of swimwear and kaftans having Mojitos expertly made by Shirley on the stoep. When we went through to our table, there were lanterns everywhere, a chilled bottle of Ken Forrester and a smiling Sindile. Dinner was ostrich stir-fry, which has always been a favourite, followed by chocolate mousse & ice cream, James had the banoffee (for the 7th night running...!) As well as remembering what we had each night for dinner, we remember how we felt. Where else can you feel so at home, so taken care of, so relaxed? That is the magic of Rissington.

In the end, the entry that caught Suzi’s eye and sense of fun was this photo from Fabienne Martinie. Great artwork Fabienne, which has earned you the prize of free lunches and dinners for every day of your next stay.

For the September competition, we are now asking you to tell us about your favourite view in the Mpumalanga Lowveld. Where is it? What do you love about it? Photos welcome but not required. The best entry will win a week at Rissington on a bed and breakfast basis and an escorted visit to their chosen spot, with a driver-guide and a lunch picnic. (No accommodation venues – so don’t try to slip in a bid for a free trip to Londolozi!)

Are we busy? Yes we are!

So much so that, when I came back from my recent travels, all the chairs had been purloined from my house to seat the extra people in the dining room at the lodge and all the loo paper in my bathrooms had been raided.

It is so rewarding to see all of Team Rissington’s hard work paying off. We really do have a gallery of wonderful smiling front-of-house faces welcoming guests, our food is utterly wonderful, Coco and the team are working miracles in the garden and the rooms and views are absolutely great. Not to mention the spa (again!).

Come and stay soon. We’d love to see you.

Chris, Shirley, Nonhlanhla, Natasha, Nkateko, Anita, Lindokuhle, Sindile; Gertrude, Dudu, Yvonne, Angel, Conny and Dellina; Futhi, Betty, Noggs, Patience, Bonisile, Rosa, Lilian, Maureen and Thandiwe; Sipho, Aubrey, Selby, Lucky, Peter, Thabiso and Coco; plus Charlotte in the Spa; also Philippa and Simphiwe in the office, whom you may email on [email protected] for all your booking requirements. Or simply book online on www.rissington.co.za and tell us all about yourself in the ‘Special Requests’ box.  And JJ (who turned 21 last week) and Lungile (who turns 20 next month). Oh, and of course Rusty and Bruno…

PS Here's some more information on the Spa: