Greenfires' Hazyview Plantation

The last morning in South Africa was yet another late morning at 7 o'clock. We enjoyed yet another great breakfast, before joining Henni, the lodges' manager, for a tour around their plantation. Not only do they have room for Nyalas and other wild animals, but they also have a huge plantation. They grow their own lemons, mangos and macadamia and make their own coffee. Henni showed us, how the plant looks like and explained what process it goes through, until they can use their coffee at the lodge and sell it to their customers. First, the plant grows green berries, which become red over time. When they are red, they get plucked and dried for 3 weeks, only using the sun and some yeast. When they are completely dry and have a crinkly black outside, they are ready to be peeled. When peeled, you get the grey shadows of a coffee bean. These have to be roasted and voilà, you've got yourself some coffee.
There were other things growing as well. For example, a very weird looking tree called the Knob fig tree, which actually grows figs out of their knobs. As it was pretty wet outside, we could also see some amazing spider web works on the ground between the green.
The plantation tour finished after everyone cracked themselves a Macadamia nut and could taste the pure nut without any salt or sugar added. I honestly like them better just as they are.
Back at the Lodge, we packed our things and said Goodbye to Henni. Now it was time to get to the airport to catch our flight. We stopped at one of the stands at the streets to get some bananas and drove back to Johannesburg. When we stopped at Milly's, a rest stop, we were surprised to find we haven't left the bush too far behind. There were Gemsbok, and Ostriches and Rhinos as well. That was funny. I was glad when a German rest stop had a free and clean toilet to use.Read more