Occasionally, I just throw up. When I strayed off the dirt road to idyllic Arniston and then headed purposefully towards Cape Agulhas to take a picture of myself standing proudly on a rock at the southernmost tip of Africa, I found myself having to drive through Struisbaai to get there.
I have been to Benoni (once). I have been to Gansbaai (four times and please don’t ask). But nothing, not even my over-time-warped sense of humour, prepared me for the Struisbaai Houses of Horror Show. By the time I passed the third house on Struisbaai’s version of “Marine Drive”, I veered off the road, narrowly missing a bronze Ford Plaasero with the registration plate “1 BRAAI GP”, and lumo-puked on to a Vibracrete verge.
I don’t want to go on. I didn’t want to go on. But, in the public interest (as in delivering a warning to you to never put yourself through Struisbaai), I very bravely took some photographs…
I give you “Kaya Manzi”. If my Zulu serves me correctly, this translates to “House of Water”. Unfortunately, not “House Under Water”. But those red columns really give this seaside mansion a lift, don’t they? No, not quite as much as 100kg of gelignite would.
Next up…
I didn’t lift this from the Google Earth images of the Vereeniging Library. It is there. Struisbaai. Marine Drive. With seaviews. And, as you can see, it’s for sale. Only arms dealers need apply.
But, wait, what’s next-door?
That’s handy. So when granny dies, you simply throw the body over the fence and she can be kept here in cold storage until you’ve decided what to do with the old crone. A nice piece of taxidermy in the dining-room with which to create the perfect dinner-table icebreaker when friends visit from Orania, perhaps?
Whatever next?
Ah, much better. Clearly designed by an architect. The owner’s brother. Who failed in his audition for The Klerksdorp Am-Dram Society’s production of “The Hobbit”.
Driving on…
Twinned with the ablution block at Nkandla.
Vrrooomm…
So that’s what happened to the Kakamas Konferensie Sentrum.
Avid readers of House & Leisure with a keen eye for design trends will want to know that those are dead pigeons mounted within recesses on either side of the steps. It’s my pleasure. I believe that fine design innovation should be shared.
And, to be of further service to you…
… simply give Di or Strepies a bell if you would like to be shown around.
A word of advice, though. Get on the blower pronto if you want to snap up one of these rare seaside beauties because something occurred to me as I surrendered to The Struisbaai Lifestyle Experience.
You have competition. Thousands of foreign visitors wanting to boast to the folks back home that they went to the southernmost tip of Africa stream down this road every day – and may well be looking to buy a uniquely South African holiday home.
Ye gods.
* Phlogger: a blogging photographer.
Fred Hatman (AKA Howard Donaldson) knew he wanted to be newspaper journalist at age 13. He has worked as a reporter and sub-editor for the Daily News and Cape Times, both based in South Africa and Wimbledon News, Today, London Daily News, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mirror, all based in London .
