A Misty Midlands Meander Weekend

Posted on July 30 2018

We visited lovely restaurants and coffee shops (and would highly recommend them), stayed at Gowrie Farm Golf Lodge, and discovered a whole list of fun activities and things to do in the area. We had A Misty Midlands Meander Weekend, and loved it!

In fact, we had been hoping for some really wintery weather to experience a cozy weekend in the Midlands. Roaring fires, puffy jackets, winter boots and woolly hats were what we were envisioning…Well, we may have got more than we bargained for!

It was 1°C when I woke up on Sunday morning.

Um, be careful what you wish for. In the heart of the winter months in Ballito (where we live), 19°C and cloudy is a pretty chilly day. We’re wimps when it comes to the cold, and we like it that way.

(Gowrie Farm Golf Lodge pictured above)

Nevertheless, it was so much fun! I loved the misty, foggy weather – it had such a mystical, almost eerie feeling to it that steadily increased throughout the day on Saturday.

We left Ballito at around 9:30 on Saturday morning, and found ourselves stopping at Spiral Blue (pictured below) at around 11:30 to have a look around – this was such a cool shop! Full of colourful hippy clothes, silver jewellery with precious stones and crystals, lovely copper earrings, unique stamps, and other fun bits and bobs, there were quite a few things I loved in this unconventional little shop.

Looking for more fun activities around Durban? Check out the 14 Best Garden Coffee Shops In Durban, the Charming Botanical Gardens Durban, Waterberry Coffee Shoppe And Forest Walk, Blue Zoo Cafe And Tea Garden Durban (With a Zoo!) and The Quirky Antique Cafe Durban.

With the weather a little drizzly and us feeling a little thirsty, we popped into Piggly Wiggly for a cuppa, and sat right by the fire to warm up. We didn’t stay long, but I loved the feel of this restaurant, it was very nearly full, so it’s clearly a popular spot.

Not quite ready for lunch, we stopped in at a few more antique and curio shops before heading out to Blueberry Cafe on Netherwood Farm, Nottingham Road. (I won’t mention how we turned right instead of left, the GPS recalculated and we drove in a perfect loop for 20 minutes to end up at our destination, 5 minutes away from where we were!! We thought this was so funny, and to be honest, I enjoyed seeing a bit more of the countryside)

This was by far my favourite restaurant / coffee shop that we visited on this trip!

Blueberry Cafe sits on a rugged, rocky hill and has views for miles. It’s a little rustic, full of unique charm, has very friendly staff, and the food was SO GOOD. I had the falafel bulgar wheat salad with roasted butternut, feta and blueberry basil pesto. WHAAAT? – So good.

Read my full post on Blueberry Cafe Midlands Meander – you’re gonna want to see the pic of the bathrooms in this place (just sayin).

Before we left, we took a walk outside and almost died. The temps had dropped significantly since we arrived!! SIGNIFICANTLY. I haven’t been that cold in a lot of years. But that didn’t stop us from getting some misty photos of the cattle that were grazing in front of the restaurant.

It was tough to leave Blueberry Cafe, I’m not sure when we’ll be back and it’s not easy to accept as there were so many delicious things I wanted to try on that menu. Why do there have to be so many miles between us? Life is hard sometimes.

But tear ourselves away we did. And headed over to the quaint Gowrie Farm Golf Lodge to get settled in. It didn’t take us long to find the fire, a couple of books and some glasses of cherry. This lodge reminded me so much of Nyanga in Zimbabwe (where I’m from), where my family spent many holidays when I was growing up. The weather and feel of the lodge was very nostalgic for me.

Activities and fun attractions in the Midlands:

Piggly Wiggly, a restaurant surrounded by little gift shops, a wine cellar, pizza place and so much more!
Aladdin’s De-light, selling unique stained glass and ceramics
Indigo Fields African Bush Spa, massages take place in tents open to the gorgeous surroundings (I haven’t been but it looks incredible!)

Fly fishing at Fordoun, fish for trout in one of South Africa’s premier fly fishing destinations
Gowrie Market, a fresh produce market sourced from surrounding farms as well as freshly baked goods, flowers, cheeses, pork products and more
Chocolate Heaven, hand-crafted artisan chocolates with 40 combinations to choose from – YUM

Just FYI: It took us about 15 attempts to get this (slightly blurry) photo of us. We eventually took it with a phone, propped up by a shoe, on the bonnet of the car…My camera refused to stay in focus on timer mode, so this is what we got! I like it though 🙂

Before we knew it, it was dinner time! We decided to stay close to home and drove about 2 minutes up the road to Bierfassl, an Austrian tavern where you can expect LARGE portions of hearty Austrian fare – we certainly didn’t leave hungry!

I had the veggie platter which consisted of crumbed mushrooms, creamed spinach, cauliflower cheese, potato wedges and butternut. I’ve never seen such a big veggie platter, it was very yum. Michael had the eisbein with potato cakes, it was HUGE! I tried some and it was very tender and tasty, not too salty which pork can be sometimes.

Sunday morning we woke up to a beautiful clear morning, I managed to drag myself up to take some photos of the sun rising over the gorgeous dam. It kept getting prettier and prettier so I took a lot of photos.

We had breakfast at Gowrie Lodge, I wasn’t too sure what to have so I settled on the breakfast bowl. This was honestly the best granola breakfast I’ve ever had at a restaurant…They make their own granola and it’s full of nuts and seeds and roasted to crunchy perfection, served with their homemade berry coulis which was also completely delicious, a good helping of Greek yoghurt and yummy fresh fruit. I could have this breakfast everyday, it was that scrumptious and healthy.

After a cup of tea and a little walk to take in the dam one last time, we checked out and headed back to Durbs. Slightly sad to leave but happy and grateful for the experience.

We got home to a beautiful double rainbow against a dark and stormy sky.

I highly recommend you plan A Misty Midlands Meander Weekend soon! And if it’s not winter when you go, you can plan a sunny Midlands Meander Weekend, that will be fun too 😉

What do you think of the Midlands Meander? Have you been? What are your favourite places or things to do there? Drop me a comment, I always love hearing from you.