Grootbos Nature Reserve Hotel, Walker Bay, Hermanus, South Africa

Further Info

This multi-award winning 1750 ha reserve is home to more than 740 different species of plants, offers warm hospitality, excellent cuisine, fine South African wines and is a nature lover's paradise.

Grootbos Nature Reserve Garden Lodge is child friendly, allowing families to enjoy five star treatment. Activities include adventures on the beach and rock pools, treasure hunts, horseback rides and many more. All the activities in the special children's programme form fun learning opportunities for children and are hosted by experienced guides. The activities for children that are on offer at Grootbos Nature Reserve are not just play activities for children - they are a combination of education and fun in a wonderful and unique, natural setting. The tailor-made children's programme is about inspiring, educating, enthusing and entertaining the children to make them curious about what is coming next and to ensure that they spend an exciting, interesting and enjoyable time at the reserve.

Grootbos is still a working farm, and all herbs, vegetables and eggs used in the restaurants at each lodge are homegrown. Three-course lunches and five-course dinners of organic New World cuisine, with plenty of fresh seafood from Gansbaai, are served every day, but while Garden Lodge's dining area has a rustic safari-lodge feel (its open-air deck has a sunken fireplace), Forest's restaurant resembles a swish New York supper club, all polished wood floors and deep red and blue walls and chairs. At the Champagne Bar outside you can sample Knysna oysters over cocktails and glasses of South African wine, or take advantage of the intimacy of the inn and ask the kitchen to prepare you a picnic of homegrown fruit, focaccia sandwiches and sparkling Cape wine for a day on the beach.

From each luxury suite you can admire the sunsets over the ocean or start the day in tune with the forest birds. Occasionally your attention will be captured by the hawks and raptors that hunt for prey in the fields below your private terrace. Natural textures and colours bring the harmony of nature into your suite. Spacious, finely appointed bathrooms complete the feeling of utter indulgence. Forest Lodge, set under a canopy of ancient milkwood trees (and reopened after a devastating fire in 2006), is clean-lined, glassy and minimalist, with 16 stand-alone suites, each done in crisp red and blue tones reflecting the colors of the sunset and sea beyond. Living spaces with glass slide doors, pine floors and designer sofas front an airy, light-filled bedroom with en suite bath-an ideal romantic retreat for couples.