Find our hometown – II

In our blog we are still a couple of months behind and so much has happened in the last year that it is challenging to keep up. This blog below refers to november 2016.

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After our first self drive trip through the Greater Kruger National Park we drove through Phalaborwa to check if it would be a nice place to live. Let’s put it this way. It is different compared to everything we know here in the Netherlands, but that doesn’t mean that it is bad. It is not bad at all. You have everything you need in this village. It is nice and practical. We adore the Greater Kruger National Park and one of the gates to it is located in Phalaborwa, which is wonderful!

After Phalaborwa we drove on towards Hoedspruit which is 70 kilometers down the road. This is such a cute village. It is small and cozy. There are no traffic lights, but at the same time you have everything you need like shops and a farmacie. There is this little neighbourhood with street names like Giraffe and Jackal street. The houses are pretty and they all have beautiful and spacious gardens. A big plus is that it has an airport.

Both Phalaborwa and Hoedspruit are on our list of possible future home towns, but both miss the same essential part: bush and wildlife. If we move all the way to South Africa we want to do it right. We prefer to live in the middle of the bush surrounded by wildlife. With that said there is a whole other option: Grietjie Private Nature Reserve.

Grietjie Private Nature Reserve is as it says a private reserve in the bush and it is located between Phalaborwa and Hoedspruit. In thirthy minutes you are in Phalaborwa (and the Phalaborwa Gate) and in forty minutes you are in Hoedspruit (and at the airport). But without all the people and without the whole city-feeling. Grietjie is a small community with 117 plots. The large plots are 21 ha and the smaller plots are 10-11 ha. You do have neighbours but it is not like some free standing houses in the Netherlands where your neighbours house is 10 centimeter away from yours. A huge plus is that it is a big area because it is open to the Greater Kruger National Park. For the animals it is open, but the people have to go around and enter through Phalaborwa (or any other) Gate. There is a gate which means that if you do not belang there you won’t come through and that makes it a gorgeous and safe place to live. We are very excited about Grietjie and we will explore our options here.

Wiebe & Melanie