OUR JOURNEY
During our 26 years living abroad we always dreamt about returning to South Africa. Our first experience of Aardvark was however sad and upsetting. It was in the middle of a severe drought with few plants, no birds, nothing green and howling, dusty winds. We went back on the insistence of conservation experts and our family, who urged us to look past the drought and see the beauty of the rolling hills, the majestic mountains, and the starry skies. That night on our return visit, when the sky turned red as only in the Karoo, and the stars shone in majestic splendour, our journey began.
During our 26 years living abroad we always dreamt about returning to South Africa. Our first experience of Aardvark was however sad and upsetting. It was in the middle of a severe drought with few plants, no birds, nothing green and howling, dusty winds. We went back on the insistence of conservation experts and our family, who urged us to look past the drought and see the beauty of the rolling hills, the majestic mountains, and the starry skies. That night on our return visit, when the sky turned red as only in the Karoo, and the stars shone in majestic splendour, our journey began.
- Sally Andrew, Recipes for Love and Murder
We had no knowledge about farming or nature conservation and certainly not hosting guests. For two years we managed the farm from abroad with our first priority being to secure fresh water. The Klein Karoo is unique in that there is ample underground water, but in our area it is brackish, and undrinkable. Installing a reverse osmosis system brought life to the farm. Over a two-year period game fences were erected, roads repaired and the farm was taken off the grid.
