There’s a brooding presence that looms over the eastern Free State village of Clarens called Mount Horeb. Some like to climb it, play golf on its flanks or simply sip at their single malts and contemplate it from a distance in the early autumn evenings, when the Lombardy poplars in the valley turn gold and the air is still. They also say that Mount Horeb with its winter snowcap is a sight to behold.
About 20 years ago, a writer stricken with muscular dystrophy (MS) used to have a weekend hideaway in Clarens. She would often stare up at the village’s mountain guardian and wish to be at its summit. Maybe wave down to her friends in the streets below. The thing about the inner circle of Clarens is that word gets around, as they say. That’s life in a small village. News of the writer’s yearning spread, and a number of Clarentines built a special chair for her. Then 14 young men from the area lifted her and carried her to the top of Mount Horeb. Such was the spirit of the village of Clarens.
Visitors arrive in Clarens and suddenly find themselves in a frenzy of art-buying, restaurant-hopping, cycling, game driving, trout fishing, white watering, birding and late-night partying…and where exactly did that quiet weekend go? And then you see that shy couple emerging dewy-eyed from the farmhouse they rented, keeping their own company and going their own romantic way, and you know that a weekend in Clarens is really what you make of it.
The more adventurous head out to Bokpoort, a farm near the Golden Gate, to ride with Christo Roos, whose ancestors go back further than the Anglo-Boer War. If you like a horse, a drink or an old-fashioned lang-arm dance to concertina music that sounds almost exactly like Louisiana Cajun, then Christo is your man. A two-day outride on a Basotho pony down the Caledon River Valley with Christo & Friends is an indelible memory.
Golden Gate Highlands Park
If you’re lucky enough to pin down the brilliant Gideon Groenewald (who’s busy on all manner of exciting wilderness projects these days), he’s the perfect guy to take on a walk through the Golden Gate Highlands National Park, less than 20 km down the road. Gideon reads these sandstone cathedrals like a very interesting history book, from the bottom up. He talks in millions of years, his world is full of dinosaurs (he’ll even show you their eggs and their droppings) and lichens and the precise link between all living things in this part of the world. The articulate Gideon Groenewald is, like his neighbour across the valley, Christo Roos, an institution around here.
Free State Pitt Stop
The year 2004 saw the ultimate Hollywood endorsement of the pulling power of Clarens, when the whole valley buzzed with news of the visit of none other than Brad Pitt the actor. Indeed, it was The Pitt in the flesh, staying over at the Lake Clarens Guest House while on a social responsibility mission in the area. Rumours abounded that Brad was going to buy property around here. Thank heavens he didn’t – imagine what the going prices for Clarens real estate would have been then…
Links: