Suurbraak: Paradise in the Overberg
Thorsten and I recently spent three days in Suurbraak, a tiny town in South Africa’s Overberg region. Thorsten (who is an architect) designed a holiday house there several years ago; now he’s designing a second house for the same clients. I was lucky...
Quirky South Africa, Part 3: The Garden Route
Read Quirky South Africa Part 1, about padstals, and Quirky South Africa Part 2, about Bethulie and the Gariep Dam. I was talking to some South African friends about my visit to the Garden Route recently, and one of them said: “Maybe this is a dumb question. But...
Quirky South Africa, Part 1: Padstals of the Platteland
My mom came for a visit and the two of us took a weeklong road trip through the South African platteland (Afrikaans for countryside). We drove from Joburg to Bethulie, Bethulie to the Garden Route, up through the Karoo Desert to Hanover, and then back to Joburg. Tiny...
Eating Gatsbys in Salt River, Cape Town
CORRECTION: Since publishing this post yesterday, I have been informed by many angry members of the Gatsby Society Facebook group that Gatsbys are NOT sandwiches and should never, ever, under any circumstances, be referred to as such, upon pain of death. I hereby...
How to Climb Table Mountain via Skeleton Gorge
I visited Cape Town for the first time more than 11 years ago, with my mother. During that trip, Mom and I attempted to climb Table Mountain in a hilariously foolish way — I’ll let you read about it yourself in the blog post I wrote back then, called How...
Heather Mason
I’m an American writer/blogger/photographer living a quirky life in Johannesburg. Follow along as I explore Johannesburg, South Africa, and the rest of the world.