{"id":12056,"date":"2017-01-25T15:43:43","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T15:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ethosmarketing.co.uk.dedi391.nur4.host-h.net\/blog\/?p=12056"},"modified":"2020-11-17T15:51:43","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T15:51:43","slug":"the-england-family-at-pakamisa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ethosmarketing.co.uk\/blog\/2017\/01\/25\/the-england-family-at-pakamisa\/","title":{"rendered":"The England Family At Pakamisa"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those of you who are keeping up with our in-depth family holiday around KZN in South Africa, then welcome to the next instalment!<\/p>\n

The next stage of our itinerary was, in my mind, the one that I was a little apprehensive about if truth be told.\u00a0\u00a0 Now my children are very well behaved (if I say so myself), but they are still children, and our next stop was at the beautiful Pakamisa, known for its wonderful fine dining food and amazing Arabian horses.\u00a0 Would either of my little cherubs let me down?<\/p>\n

Well, nothing could have been further from the truth.\u00a0 On arrival, we were met by the team who sat us down in reception to go through our plans for the next couple of days and the evening menu choices.\u00a0 I quietly mentioned that Hayden was a very simple eater (translate that to fussy!) and would plain pasta and cheese be possible at dinner?\u00a0 Not a problem at all was the response, which was greeted by a great sigh of relief from me.\u00a0 With that challenge over with it was off to our suite for a long hot soak in the bath whilst Steve took in the amazing uninterrupted views over Zululand and the children chilled out on the bed with a movie.<\/p>\n

The suites are massive and split level with the lounge a few steps down from the bedroom.\u00a0 This works well if you are sharing with children as Pakamisa set up 2 single beds in the lounge area giving us all more than enough space to enjoy the suite.<\/p>\n

That evening we head back to the main lodge for our drinks before dinner.\u00a0 There is a another British family staying as well who have been at Pakamisa for 2 weeks, just enjoying the easy pace of life.\u00a0 The children excitedly told us about the riding competitions that the staff had set up for them and that the final day of the challenge was tomorrow before they left for the coast.\u00a0 They had had a great time and now Daisy and Hayden were full of excitement too.<\/p>\n

Dinner was an absolute delight.\u00a0 Hayden was delighted with his pasta and cheese and Daisy, Steve and I could not fault our Kudu steaks.\u00a0 The flavours, presentation and service were all perfect.\u00a0 To top it all off, the staff were aware that it had been Daisy\u2019s birthday a couple of days earlier and made her the most incredible chocolate cake!\u00a0 One very happy 11 year old.<\/p>\n

The following morning, after breakfast, we set off on our very first game walk with Chamu, our guide.\u00a0 This was an ideal way to introduce the children to the African bush and wildlife in a very safe area.\u00a0 There are no predators to worry about, rather just the joy of tracking plains game.\u00a0 Studying footprints, examining dung for its freshness and finally, upon turning a corner, we saw our prize up ahead – a mother giraffe with 2 young giraffes in her care.\u00a0 There is something truly magical seeing the expressions on faces that have never encountered wildlife in its own environment before.<\/p>\n

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We followed them for some time until finally they wandered off into thicker bush and we returned to our vehicle to head back for a well-earned lunch!\u00a0 After lunch we were back into our game vehicle and heading down to the stables for what turned out to be one of the highlights of our entire family holiday \u2013 the safari on horseback.<\/p>\n

Neither Daisy nor Hayden had ridden a horse before (I am not counting the pony that they sat on at a friend\u2019s birthday party!), Steve had only ridden once or twice and I am a real novice but the most experienced of us all.\u00a0 \u00a0Nervous anticipation\u2026<\/p>\n

Sarah organised hats and horses for us.\u00a0 Each of the children was led by an experienced rider, Steve was given a slow and reliable horse and an experienced rider to assist him and I was given a beautiful, majestic chestnut that I hoped would do as she was told!\u00a0 In convoy we left the stables to be immediately greeted by a slightly erratic ostrich bearing down on us!\u00a0 At the last minute it swerved to avoid a head on collision \u2013 whew!\u00a0 As we moved further away from the buildings we started to encounter a wonderful array of wildlife.\u00a0 We passed warthogs, zebra, impala, nyala and wildebeest in a clearing, who just carried on their business as we passed by.\u00a0 The thrill of getting up close without spooking the animals, because we were on horseback, was incredible.<\/p>\n

We rode through the bush and woodland taking in the peace and tranquillity that this remote part of KZN offers travellers.<\/p>\n

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We finished our action packed day relaxing on our balcony before once again, heading to the bar for drinks followed by another wonderful meal (and pasta and cheese for Hayden) then an early night!<\/p>\n

On our last morning we stayed at the lodge to try out some more activities that were new to the children and Steve \u2013 archery and rifle shooting at the tiniest of targets.\u00a0 Well, more success as we all realised that first off this was really good fun and secondly we were all rather good at it \u2013 particularly the rifle shooting!\u00a0 Many conversations followed about whether this would be the new family past-time once we returned home\u2026<\/p>\n

Sadly this was to be the end of our stay at Pakamisa.\u00a0 Everyone grumbled as we left \u2013 why did you not book us in for another night mummy?\u00a0 Steve agreed with them and so did I.<\/p>\n

When we voted on our top 30 experiences of our entire holiday, this wonderfully quirky lodge that sits atop a hill in remote Zululand featured the most in our top 5 best experiences.\u00a0 Not an obvious choice at first but without a doubt Pakamisa is a must do on a self-drive holiday to KZN.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those of you who are keeping up with our in-depth family holiday around KZN in South Africa, then welcome to the next instalment! The…<\/p>\n

Continue readingThe England Family At Pakamisa<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,59],"tags":[16,135],"class_list":["post-12056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-south-africa","tag-kwazulu-natal","tag-south-africa","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethosmarketing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethosmarketing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethosmarketing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethosmarketing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethosmarketing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethosmarketing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethosmarketing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethosmarketing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethosmarketing.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}