[imagesource: Hedonist Hippy Travels]

How far are you willing to drive for a weekend away?

I draw the line at two-and-a-half hours, meaning the village of Stanford is an option if you’re zooming out of Cape Town at Friday lunchtime.

We don’t work past midday on a Friday. Those are the rules.

Depending on the traffic you’re looking at somewhere around two hours.

The Telegraph’s resident South African travel expert, Pippa de Bruyn, has penned an ode to Stanford this week, saying she fell in love with the place in the 1990s.

Before it was cool, you know?

It’s titled ‘The South African Winelands gem you’ve never heard of‘ so perhaps it’s not long now until the Brits and their powerful pounds arrive en masse.

I first discovered Stanford with the man who would become my husband in the 1990s. The village, declared a conservation area, was the epitome of rural charm. Century-old cottages were fronted with deep verandahs and edged with well-tended gardens watered by leiwater channels. The reed-fringed Klein River [below] that was the village border attracted abundant birdlife, clusters of yellow-billed ducks grazing below burrows made by giant kingfishers, egrets and glossy ibis winging up and down the waterway.

Image: Stanford Info

On weekend getaways from Cape Town we would walk the streets, picking out the house in which we would one day raise our children. Of course, we never did. Children bend your lives in places you can’t predict.We still returned for special occasions (memorably my 50th birthday – a decadent celebration at the Stanford Valley guest farm), with each visit inevitably culminating in the usual stroll along the high street, picking out the house we might one day grow old in.

I’d consider retiring to Stanford as long as the WiFi is good and my towny friends promise never to arrive unannounced to spend the weekend.

You can stay, but call ahead.

In the meantime, the Stanford Hotel is always a good place to rest one’s head during a weekend visit.

Image: SA Venues

The hotel’s website says Stanford’s “preserved Victorian cottages, dirt roads, mountains, and river make it one of the most popular villages in the Overberg… [with] a beautifully maintained wandelpad which meanders around the village alongside the Kleinriver”.

Stunning.

Plans are also afoot for an exciting development on the conservation front:

The Coot Club, which opens for bookings in March, is one of seven landowners between Klein River lagoon and Walker Bay nature reserve; of the seven, six have agreed to rezone as a protected conservation area.

Negotiations are still underway, but if all goes according to plan, 2022 might see the declaration of the Cape’s newest, 464-hectare nature reserve.

Lagoons, kayaking, canoeing, bird-watching – country living for the win.

Next, the tourists will come for McGregor and Riebeek Kasteel.

[source:telegraph]