By Roxanne Reid
Take a drive along the R332 through the Baviaanskloof and you simply can’t miss Vero’s. Here among the stones, scrub and mountains, the colourful garden on a bend in the road will make you stop and stare long before you notice that the simple home is actually a restaurant.
Take a drive along the R332 through the Baviaanskloof and you simply can’t miss Vero’s. Here among the stones, scrub and mountains, the colourful garden on a bend in the road will make you stop and stare long before you notice that the simple home is actually a restaurant.
It’s the brainchild of Veronica Maganie and has been open for nearly seven years now. ‘Our house is right next to the road and people were always stopping to look at the garden or ask for some water, so I decided to start selling cold drinks, then chips and some snacks. Now it’s grown into a restaurant,’ says the enterprising Veronica.
Don’t expect anything fancy or ambitious here in the middle of nowhere. Vero’s is some 50 kilometres from the nearest town and that’s far in an area where the locals’ main form of transport is the trusty donkey cart. What you will find, though, is tea, coffee, cold drinks and roosterkoek. On the day we visited, the fillings of the day included cheese & tomato or apricot jam.
Don’t expect anything fancy or ambitious here in the middle of nowhere. Vero’s is some 50 kilometres from the nearest town and that’s far in an area where the locals’ main form of transport is the trusty donkey cart. What you will find, though, is tea, coffee, cold drinks and roosterkoek. On the day we visited, the fillings of the day included cheese & tomato or apricot jam.
We sat at a wooden table under a shady tree at the edge of the gravel road and Veronica’s sister Katrina took our order. As we scoffed the fresh roosterkoek – just what we needed for a late breakfast – we admired the garden, Veronica’s mum Mieta’s pride and joy.
‘They’re just pretty,’ Mieta told me later as we took a tour of the small patch stuffed with shasta daisies and feverfew, pink roses, sweetpeas, inca lilies, dianthus, tall hollyhocks, bright red poppies and more. Here and there stood one of Mieta’s ‘found art’ sculptures made of old wood, licence plates, hub caps and plastic dolls - anything her creative spirit was moved to add.
If you’re inspired by what you see, buy one of the small potted succulents, interesting rocks or bits of driftwood that the Maganies have for sale. [Update 2023: Sadly, Mieta died three years ago and the garden no longer shows her special and somewhat weirdly riveting touch.]
‘They’re just pretty,’ Mieta told me later as we took a tour of the small patch stuffed with shasta daisies and feverfew, pink roses, sweetpeas, inca lilies, dianthus, tall hollyhocks, bright red poppies and more. Here and there stood one of Mieta’s ‘found art’ sculptures made of old wood, licence plates, hub caps and plastic dolls - anything her creative spirit was moved to add.
If you’re inspired by what you see, buy one of the small potted succulents, interesting rocks or bits of driftwood that the Maganies have for sale. [Update 2023: Sadly, Mieta died three years ago and the garden no longer shows her special and somewhat weirdly riveting touch.]
Veronica (centre) with her mother and sister Across the road, the Baviaans Craft Shop – also manned by the Maganie trio – is built from organic materials like rock, wood and clay, and has a ‘living roof’ covered in indigenous plants. Inside is evidence that the trio aren’t the only enterprising and creative Baviaanskloof folk; there are angels knitted from wire by the members of a women’s empowerment organisation near Willowmore, T-shirts, other local arts and crafts, as well as dried fruit and homemade biscuits. [Update 2023: this dedicated craft shop no longer exists but you can still view the crafts behind the house. An area beyond the garden was flattened in 2023 in preparation for a new craft centre.]
You’ll find Vero’s on the R332 that goes from Willowmore to Patensie through the Baviaanskloof mega-reserve. It’s about 50 kilometres east of Willowmore.
Guide to the Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area, Eastern Cape
More about the Baviaanskloof
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
You’ll find Vero’s on the R332 that goes from Willowmore to Patensie through the Baviaanskloof mega-reserve. It’s about 50 kilometres east of Willowmore.
Guide to the Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area, Eastern Cape
More about the Baviaanskloof
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
