Love Local

We are locals promoting the best of what Swellendam has to offer. Here you will see why we

02/10/2020

All this healthy Spring rain has inspired us to share some of our favourite local places to get a boost for the coming summer! 🍋 From freshly made organic juices to a selection of boosters, shakes and vitamin rich berries, here's our Top 5 favourite healthy drinks! 🥝

Mentioned in this week's post:

- All things energy at the CardioZone Gym HealthBar
- Locally made pomegrante juice at Jan Harmsgat JHG
- Fresh local berries from Wildebraam Berry Estate
- Organic juices and shakes in Suurbraak Paradise Organic Restaurant
- Lemon and ginger boosters at Ikigai - Artisan Coffee Bar & Deli

Where's your favourite spot that offers some energy to your day? Send some ideas to us, we'd love to add them to our list!

For more local inspiration and the best of what our town has to offer, visit us at www.livelocallovelocal.co.za 🇿🇦🌿

30/09/2020

Finding a unique pattern in life that balances a busy work schedule with a place of sanctuary that allows the time to focus on your true passions is what Richard de Jager has found in Swellendam.

As a stylist working on projects the world over, you can usually find him hidden away in his studio in the village centre, enveloped by a vibrant menagerie of inspirational colours and textures that celebrate his love of world class design and luxurious cotton products.

Richards somewhat bashful yet flamboyant personality is boldly expressed through his meticulously curated collections from design legends such as Kaffe Fassett Collective, Tula Pink, Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner and Keiko Goke.

An inspiration to both local patchwork hobbyists and those looking to satiate a desire for rare and extravagant cotton products, visit Richard at ♡ The Patchwork Studio Swellendam South Africa

For more reasons to love living local, visit us at www.livelocallovelocal.co.za

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25/09/2020

In celebration of our wonderful heritage, we'd like to share our Top 5 experiences that make our local culture lekker! 💜

What's was your favourite thing to do on Heritage Day? We'd love to hear from you, and add your local experiences to our ever-growing list of intersting and captivating reasons to visit our country town. 🇿🇦🌿

Featured today:

- The best place to swim and braai with friends at Bontebok National Park
- A look into our interesting past with the team at Swellendam Winter School
- Lekker local roosterkoek at the Oude Post Bistro, Buffelsjagsrivier
- Visit an art gallery in the historic town of Suurbraak with Donovan Julius contemporary Arts
- Take the family on a quick sunset game drive at Kwetu Guest Farm

More of the finest local stories and beautiful local photographs on our website: https://livelocallovelocal.co.za/ 🧡

22/09/2020

The trail winds up steadily through the pines. You lean forward gently to ease your weight. Up here, on horseback there’s a great stillness and peace in the world. No thoughts disturb you now and the only sounds that you are aware of are a gentle, lulling clip-clop and interspersed in that rhythm, birdsong bubbles up and fills the surrounding silence just for a moment. The ancient smells of leather and warm animal body tether you to a nostalgia you never knew you had. The trees sparkle and part to reveal the dazzling afternoon sun and as you trot out onto the crest of the hill, a landscape unfolds before you, that surely must have been created to be explored on horseback.

Swellendam is best seen from the back of a horse, actually anywhere is better when seen from the back of a horse, so if you really want to immerse yourself in nature and explore the land that lies at the foot of the Langeberg mountain range then visit Debra-Leigh and her crew at Hermitage Horses ♡

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18/09/2020

In celebration of Tourism Month we're sharing our Top 5 local nature reserves, with beautiful photos from visitors to remind us of the natural beauty of our home in the Overberg 💙

We've included estimated times to travel with your car to make planning your trip a little easier! 🚕

Cape Nature are currently offering free entry into their reserves till the 22nd September, so there's a little extra incentive to go out and explore this weekend! 🌿

What's your favourite reserve to visit? Share your photos by tagging us or leave us a comment, we'd love to hear from you!

For more of the best Swellendam attractions visit us at www.livelocallovelocal.co.za 🧡🇿🇦

Reserves mentioned in this post:

- De Hoop Collection Nature Reserve
- Grootvadersbosch Conservancy
- De Mond Nature Reserve
- Marloth Nature Reserve Friends of Marloth
- Bontebok National Park

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13/09/2020

We're still experiencing long grey, rainy days in the Overberg countryside and we're still spending our nights next to a warm toasty fireplace with a glass of red, but the sun is waking and raising it's warm face on our hilly horizon a little earlier each day. And with the promise of warmer weather and bluer skies, a new energy begins to kindle and build inside each of us, an exciting, dynamic energy, a doing, moving, dancing, experiencing, celebrating energy.

We may not be able to attend all the festivals and celebrations that we have become so accustomed to in our area, this year, but 2020 has really shown us how much those festivals of freedom and movement, expression and dance and sharing with others, really means to us. Here's hoping we get to dance together soon, outdoors on the dew covered grass, in massive groups of beautiful people, celebrating the sunshine.

These photos were taken at SpiritFest Africa, held at Somerset Gift Getaway Farm earlier this year. ♡

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11/09/2020

Spring is here, and if you haven't made a trip to see the whales yet, here are some tips to get you started! 🐳

We've listed some of our favourite places, from Witsand to Stanford, from the coast, boat, or from the sky!

We'd love to hear about your experiences, tag us in your photos so we can help spread the word of our wonderful town! 🇿🇦

Mentioned in this week's Top 5 post:

- Witsand: Witsand, Western Cape, South Africa
- Koppie Alleen: De Hoop Collection Nature Reserve
- Gansbaai: Sea safaris Ivanhoe Sea Safaris
- Stanford: Chartered flights African Wings
- Arniston: De Mond Nature Reserve

Visit our website for the best of what locals have to offer: www.livelocallovelocal.co.za 💙

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04/09/2020

Along with the arrival of Spring, we're here to celebrate everything we love about living and supporting local, and a weekend market is the perfect way to do both!

Here are our Top 5 favourites, we've included fundraisers, social evening markets and some regular meeting spots in the morning sunshine!

Let us know which markets or local events we could add to our next list? 🧡

Mentioned here today:

- Montagu Village Market in Montagu
- Lentemark Swellendam that is taking place tomorrow!
- UNDER the OAKS Market next to the Drostdy
- Stanford Sunset Market on Saturday evenings
- Eseltjiesrus Donkey Sanctuary annual fund raiser book fair

See you all at the Lentemark tomorrow!

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28/08/2020

If you scratch at the surface and gently peel away the antique layers of flaking paint that this quaint, picture perfect village seems to be made of, you will find something quite unexpected. Right at the centre of Suurbraak, an old missionary town that resembles the works of a classical landscape painter, there is a small ramshackle cottage spilling bright and bold visionary colours out of it's door and into the world. And there is a man in the doorway to greet you with paint stained hands and a broad smile full of passion and you'll know him by the heart he wears on his sleeve. This is Donovan Julius. This is his art gallery.

Donovan is creating an artwork, a centre to uplift his community, a place of empowerment and education, a home for hope and love. Donovan knows that life is a canvas and what you put on it is entirely up to you. He knows that we are all artists and that we all have the capability and the responsibility to make something beautiful with our lives.

Visit Donovan Julius contemporary Arts on Main Road, Suurbraak. ♡

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28/08/2020

And just like that, Spring is just around the corner! And what better way to celebrate the coming sunshine than with a Friday list of our Top 5 favourite white wines! From award winning Chardonnay's, to picnic spots, sun drenched veranda's and a sparkling bubbly to celebrate what matters!

Mentioned in the list today:

- Shiraz Rosé from Zandvliet Wines
- Sauvignon Blanc from Viljoensdrift Fine Wines & River Cruises
- Chardonnay from Joubert-Tradauw Vineyards & Cellar
- Cap Classique Brut from Graham Beck Bubbly
- 'Finesse' Chardonnay from De Wetshof Wines

What are your favourite local white wines? Let us know so we can add these to our next list 🌿

For more local stories and inspiration, visit us at www.livelocallovelocal.co.za 🇿🇦

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25/08/2020

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success.

Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential — as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them. To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.

~ Bill Watterson

More local inspiration 💙 www.livelocallovelocal.co.za

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21/08/2020

You're excitedly unpacking the boxes from the car at your new house in the countryside, the lady from next door pops over "just to welcome you to the neighbourhood". She's holding a dish-towel-wrapped bundle of freshly baked bread and an ex mayo jar, now packed full of sweet preserved green figs. You take them and smile gratefully and you notice that they are both still warm. This is the way of the countryside.

In the warmer summer months of the South African Overberg region, fig trees drip with fruit along the fence lines, nearby fields are lined with finger-staining youngberry deliciousness, backyard peach groves blossom and buzz, neighbourhood orange trees perfume the evening air, guavas, loquats and gooseberries are in endless abundance. This is fruit season in a small town.
And with so much produce available, nothing will be wasted. The industrious creativity of country living locals means that there are going to be kitchen cupboards throughout the village packed to the hinges with jars of otherworldly flavours, preserves, jams, sauces and relishes.

If you live in a small country town, chances are extremely high that there is at least one jar of homemade goodness in your pantry, created by hand with love and care by a kind lady next door. Order delicious seasonal jams from one of these kind ladies like Simone Norton ♡

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Address

15 Carlton Mall, 23 Voortrek Street
Swellendam
6740

Telephone

+27827712765

Website

http://www.livelocallovelocal.co.za/

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We love to live local!

Hello! We are a team of locals that chose to live our lives in the country town of Swellendam. We serve to amplify what makes us love to “live local”. Our content is created and curated with the intention to inspire others to discover the best of what Swellendam and the surrounding areas have to offer, and to perhaps even invest in this lifestyle themselves.

We are actively sourcing, assisting and promoting attractions, products, services and businesses that enhance our country way of life, and elevate these to inspire others around the world. We are here to collaborate, just drop us a line.

Regards, Bruce & Alex.