Gannaga Lodge at the top of Gannaga Pass, Tankwa Karoo

​By Roxanne Reid
Clouds of dust whirl across a brown and khaki landscape, the air sucked dry of moisture. This is the Tankwa Karoo National Park in the grips of a four-and-a-half-year drought. We’re here to stay at Gannaga Lodge at the top of Gannaga Pass, Tankwa Karoo, to explore this stony desert-like vastness on the way to nowhere.

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Gemsbok stride across the landscape, their tails flicking. Springbok and Cape mountain zebras nuzzle at the parched grass in search of nourishment. A clutch of ostriches peck at the earth and one settles for a dust bath, wriggling its body and flapping its wings to get rid of parasites.

​It’s a timeless scene, one that could have played out just like this hundreds of years ago.

Gemsbok at a waterhole in the Tankwa Karoo

​As our vehicle climbs the Gannaga Pass, we look back over the Tankwa Karoo National Park and see a ribbon of green along the dry riverbed, a promise of hope for the future. We stop near the top to watch a klipspringer perch on a rock, the rubbery substance on its hooves giving it grip to dance on tip-toes across rocks with ease.

Looking down on the Tankwa Karoo National Park from Gannaga Pass

Up here, where the Gannaga Lodge rests at the top of the pass, it’s five to six degrees cooler than the burning heat on the valley floor. We breathe a sigh of relief.

The farm’s long history
Although Gannaga Lodge took its first guests only in 2007, it’s part of the Visagie farm called Agterkop, which has been in lodge co-owner Johann Visagie’s family since 1790 – a long heritage. It’s a private 20-hectare enclave within the greater Tankwa Karoo National Park, somewhere between Calvinia, Ceres and Sutherland.

The main lodge building after sunset

​​The first farmhouse was built in 1800; called the Kliphuis, it still stands below the lodge as you drive up from the Gannaga Pass. It is being renovated for self-catering guests.

The Kliphuis (stone house) is the original farmhouse built in 1800

​In the 1931s, lack of water meant moving the farm’s main buildings up the hill to where the lodge stands today. We stayed in one of five en suite rooms in this second farmhouse, with a stoep and a living area to ourselves. The walls were thick, the window sills wide enough to sit in as we drank in the view of veld and mountains in the distance.

The second farmhouse at Gannaga Lodge, built in the 1930s

Old stone walled-buildings have been refurbished to create guest rooms

​There’s a line of five other rooms too. They have been renovated for guests from their original use as stables for donkeys and horses, a post office, schoolroom and storeroom for wheat, mealies and oats.

A third farmhouse was built in 1962, and that’s where Johann still lives with his family.

Five rooms in what used to be old store rooms and stables

​Between 2005 and 2007, a new building went up to house the reception, bar, lounge and dining room of the lodge. But you wouldn’t really know it’s not original because it’s made of stone recycled from old farm buildings and has rietdakke (reed ceilings), so it blends in perfectly with the older parts of the farm.

The reception area, though built between 2005 and 2007, blends seamlessly with the older buildings

The lodge experience
Enjoy a home-style meal in the dining room, looking out over the swimming pool and the vast expanse of the Tankwa Karoo beyond. Relax on a comfy couch in the lounge/library and bury your nose in a good book, or admire the odd bits and pieces of decor like an old sewing machine or record player, bookshelves made from what were once door frames. 

The sitting area or library at Gannaga Lodge

​Sit on a stool at the corrugated iron and wood bar to admire the stained glass door, the thatched ceiling and a collection of caps that hangs nearby, or grab one of the board games and dig in at one of the tables near the fireplace.

Although we visited in March, I’m dying to go back in winter, when the fireplaces will kick into gear to warm guests when snow blankets the hilltops. Think hot chocolate around the fire, warming dinners and snuggling up with a book and a glass of red wine.

The bar, with its fireplace just out of frame on the left

Gannaga Lodge is homey rather than chic or zhoosh, but it grows on you the way a worn-in pair of shoes does because they’re comfy. There are thick ceiling beams and wooden floors in the passage of the farm house, heaters and electric blankets in the rooms for winter, and a fan for summer. The bedside lamps look like old paraffin lamps – an old-fashioned touch that comes with the modern convenience of electricity. 

‘The governess’s room and Oupa’s room were outside the main farm house, as you can see,’ co-owner Robert Black told us. There was an advantage of rooms leading directly off the stoep: it’s said there may have been some to-ing and fro-ing between the two of them when Ouma wasn’t looking.

One of the wire-and-cement artworks that dot the lodge's grounds

​There are eccentric pieces of art in the grounds, some of them cement-soaked linen draped on wire forms – a woman looking out over the veld, a tea party, a man fishing for a rusty bucket. These pieces have been made by Johann’s brother-in-law when he visits the lodge. Other quirky touches include the bookshelves in the library and rickety wooden windows used to frame rusted enamelware like a kettle, ladle or basin in the dining room, as if they were pictures.

Karoo-style art and decor

​But it’s not the homeliness or even the quirky decor touches that are the lodge’s best feature. It’s your hosts, Johann and Robert. Johann lives here year round and Robert visits for about half the year to get away from winters in Edinburgh. They’re hugely hospitable and fun to be around, to tell a few stories about the farm and the area and make you feel at home. Everything about the lodge, including the welcome, is reminiscent of the days when a road trip was an adventure, not just a means of getting from point A to point B.

Gannaga Lodge staff members (from left): Cheraline Tromp, Keonoley Geland and Isabella Muller

Even when the wind came up on our first afternoon and slapped around the grounds, it seemed invigorating rather than annoying. Next morning, when the wind had died away, I sat on the stoep with my coffee. The air was crisp and cool. There was a yawning silence interrupted only by birds chittering in the trees. A bokmakierie, some buntings and a grey mongoose came to visit.

I was exactly where I wanted to be.

(PS. I'll tell you about 10 of the things to do at Gannaga Lodge in another post.)

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