At Rustlers Valley Guest Lodge, we met the occupants, neighbours and anyone else who seemed to materialise from time to time (we were the only guests) at dinner that night.
There was Dale the local naturalist and loved snakes.
Birthday boy Carl couldn’t believe that I hadn’t heard of some permaculture guru from Australia. I didn’t like to admit that I didn’t even know what permaculture was, let alone have any idea of its personalities!
Then there was Bill who either had a hard life or he was old enough to have been dancing to Glenn Miller let alone Janis Joplin.
There were other refugees of the sixties as well but none as dominant as Frick.
Hippies have always maintained that everyone’s equal and there are no leaders in their ‘gangs’.
Well in this case Frick was without doubt the leader. He just had that look; I would call it the Charles Manson look but that sounds rather sinister. He had the long ponytail and beard and had a sort of holier than thou sort of presence.
When he looked at me I wasn’t sure whether he was going to bless me or offer me a joint! In fact he was actually the owner of Rustlers, so I guess he had some sort of commercial seniority.
Apparently he was a farmer going broke when he decided to build the lodge and change direction. How he became an aging hippie was not explained.
Rustlers are famous, amongst those that care, for their music festivals. We know this because, after the initial polite conversation, the sole topic was the upcoming Easter festival, apparently a sort of South African mini Woodstock.
By the time our beds beckoned we knew all about running festivals and have since mercifully forgotten it all.

An Umbrella Thorn Acacia at sunset on the savannah of South Africa. It’s a native to Africa.