Wanting to getaway to the KZN Midlands but are not keen on doing much meandering? You want a place that is close to the Midlands Meander, self catering, relaxing, peaceful but is not totally cut off – in other words it has wifi and a TV. Well I have just the place for you – Brahman Hills Springholm Cottages.
Brahman Hills is situated in Nottingham Road and the newly built Springholm Cottages are 4,5km from the Brahman Hills Hotel. There are a variety of self-catering cottages and B&B rooms to choose from which are near a large dam on the Blue Crane Nature Reserve. The reserve has many species of wildlife and free roaming Brahman cattle which gives the hotel its name. All the guests at Springholm have unrestricted access to the facilities at Brahman Hills.
The Springholm bed & breakfast rooms come in 2 and 4 sleeper options and they are situated close to the breakfast room. The waterfront Honeymoon Suite overlooking the dam is also a B&B room. I love the names of the rooms : Heron, Duck, Ibis and Sunbird (honeymoon suite.)
There are 6 self-catering cottages – 3 waterfront cottages that sleep up to 4 people and 3 stone cottages which sleep up to 6 people. What is fabulous is that breakfast is included for the self-catering cottages as well. All of the cottages can be separated into completely independent and private split level accommodation with the B&B room upstairs and the self-catering unit downstairs. The kitchens are fitted with fridge, microwave, oven with hob, toaster and kettle. The rooms are also supplied with tea, coffee, sugar and fresh milk is in the fridge.
I was asked to review Springholm Cottages and I was fortunate that my daughter was able to join me on this relaxing trip to the beautiful Midlands. We drove up on the Friday morning as my daughter was keen to look through the jackets at JackeTz in Merrivale (near the Spar). If you need a warm jacket then this is the place to look as they are imports from the USA. The next stop was at Blueberry Cafe on Nottingham Road as my daughter had never been and she was keen to see the well known toilets that look onto the cows. We had hamburgers for lunch before taking the drive back up the road to Brahman Hills.
Check in for Springholm Cottages is at the main reception at Brahman Hills. Since we were staying in a self-catering unit it was decided that I would cook something for supper that night. The best place to get supper was at the next door Windmills Kitchen and we bought their frozen chicken & mushroom pies.
It’s not an easy road to drive to Springholm Cottages as the road has a lot of that corrugated iron type bumps which make it a rattling trip. Once off the rattling road you drive up a farm road and then use the given remote to open the gate and then drive down to Springholm. We were given the keys for Crake and we knew that it was a waterfront unit so we followed the signs to get to there. Crake is a great unit as there is a dedicated parking space next to the front door. I reversed my car down to the door so that it was easier for us to remove the luggage. We didn’t even unpack first before opening up the door to the deck and looking at the glorious view of the dam. Warning : the deck is not toddler or young child friendly. After unpacking we took a walk around the dam and my daughter even went for a short row on the boat.
It had been a very hot Friday but now the clouds were gathering and it looked like rain was expected. The door was left open so we could hear the happy bird sounds from outside while I put the pies into cook. I was also glad of my decision to cook that evening as a thick mist descended and it was not driving weather.
The following morning we took our time to get up and I enjoyed my coffee out on the deck. It did rain the night before and the morning was very misty and chilly. Breakfast is served from 7 – 10am but we only left the unit at 8am and walked up to the dedicated breakfast room. We were served muesli and yoghurt in a glass and a plate with cold meat, cheese, biscuits and muffins was placed on our table. They have a hot breakfast menu which you can choose items from. I chose poached eggs, french toast, streaky bacon, sauteed button mushrooms and grilled tomato. After the breakfast re-fuel we went back to our unit and instead of leaving straight away to do a bit of meandering we found ourselves relaxing and watching a movie.
We did eventually leave the unit and drove to see the world famous Ardmore ceramics. You must put Ardmore on your list to visit when you are in the Midlands. Our next and only other stop was at Piggly Wiggly where we bought chocolates from Chocolate Heaven and then had lunch at Piggly Wiggly cafe.
We had planned to have supper at the Brahman Hills Cafe and a drink at Copper that evening but unfortunately the mist descended again and it was even thicker than the night before. Fortunately we still had two frozen Windmills Kitchen chicken & mushroom pies to cook. Plus I also had the gin that I had bought from Blueberry Cafe the day before. G&T, pies and movies made for a great evening in our cosy unit.
A lot more guests had stayed at Springholm on the Saturday night so we found that a buffet had been set up for breakfast on Sunday and we could still choose what cooked breakfast we wanted as well. After breakfast we had the sad task to pack up our things and pack the car to make the drive back to Brahman Hills to check out.
Before leaving for home we stayed to enjoy the new carvery at The Stables Restaurant situated inside the Blue Crane Nature Reserve at Brahman Hills. The carvery was at 12:30pm and we had checked out just after 10am. To pass the time we walked down to look at the glass chapel and then we sat in the lounge area inside Brahman Hills. One of the Brahman Hills cats took a liking to my daughter and had a wonderful sleep on her lap.
There is a fabulous view from the diningroom at The Stables and it was a glorious Midlands day with an incredible blue sky. We were so happy to have seen the famous Brahman cattle just outside the entrance to The Stables. Food, food and more food was displayed before us with a wide range of starters, mains and desserts to choose from. Oh how we wished we had not eaten breakfast that morning. The carvery/buffet is R195 pp for adults and R115 pp for children under 12 years of age. Included is an arrival drink of either fruit juice, red or white wine or a craft beer. The menu does change so do not expect to see some of the dishes that we had on the buffet. We tried to taste as many of the dishes as possible but it was an immense task. The carvery was a fitting end to a fabulous Midlands getaway.
Interested in a Midlands getaway to Brahman Hills? Take a look at their website to see their many different accommodation options for a weekend getaway. Some of their current accommodation specials are : 2 Night Midweek Midlands Hotel Escape, 2 Night Midweek Midlands Cottage Escape and Epic Family Getaway for 4.
Take a look at the Specials tab on the website to see the other specials available at Brahman Hills.
Note : My daughter and I were hosted at Springholm Cottages and for the carvery.
#hosted #MidlandsMagic