I don’t know if I’ve ever told the story of our honeymoon…? In short, we were broke and our honeymoon was mostly a disaster, but it made for some great memories and we learnt our lesson – after our honeymoon we decided that every anniversary would be a huge treat. Our first anniversary was spent at Pezulu tree house lodge, our second was an MSC cruise to the Portuguese Islands, and this year we headed to Timamoon Lodge. It was a mid-week break as our anniversary fell on a Wednesday, so we decided to take an extra long weekend and go away from the Wednesday.

Mpumalanga has always been one of my favourite provinces – the gorgeous landscapes, incredible trees… It’s one of those places where God was just kinda showing off when He made it. Timamoon is located just outside Hazyview, up on a hill, so you get some incredible views. I was very excited to get there!
This was also our last getaway as just the two of us! I happened to be 24 weeks pregnant on our anniversary!

We arrived, checked in, and were told that we were the only 2 people there that evening! They said that since we were the only guests, they could serve supper in our house if we preferred. We were then shown to our house, we stayed in Many Moons, which sleeps 6 people… We walked in to the sounds of a Putumayo CD – I forget exactly which one – which fit the mood perfectly! Immediate I felt relaxed

The owners of Timamoon spent many years traveling and collecting interesting (furniture) pieces from all over the world. They incorporated these into the buildings of the lodge. The window in the bathroom for instance (top right) is from India.

The view from our stoep, and me at 24 weeks 😀

After exploring for a while, we came back to a table for two, set up in the living room of our house. The fireplace had been packed and there were 2 baskets on the kitchen counter with all our foodstuffs.
Our first night was spent eating (way too much – the food is incredible and the portions are huge) and playing Rummy, while a cozy fire burned in the background.

The next morning we were off to the restaurant for breakfast, where we also received the menu for lunch. You get to choose what you want for lunch and they bring it to your house in a picnic basket. You can enjoy your lunch in your house or you have the option of hiking down to the river to enjoy it there – we were very keen on the second option, but since I was pregnant and it was a rather steep hike, we decided to stay home and enjoy our lunch over a game of Scrabble.

After lunch we went for a walk – Timamoon used to be a farm and you can still find many avo trees. But more importantly, Timamoon has incredible views!

Supper was served in the restaurant the rest of our visit as other guests had arrived. I can honestly say that I didn’t have one bad meal during our stay! The food was so good that I just wished I had a bigger stomach! For dessert I had pineapple soup and doughnut balls – so delicious!

When we got back to our room after supper, the windows and curtains had been closed, there were candles lit throughout the house, and our bed had been turned down. There was also a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne (seeing as I was pregnant) on the table in the living room and a letter wishing us a happy anniversary!

Left: I loved the window in the pool room where Wihan and I had a few intense games – he always won
Right: The outside shower at our house

Even though we had just been gone a few days, it felt like we were gone more than a week! We came home relaxed, re-energised and ready for the new chapter we were about to enter… Parenthood!