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28/05/2026

STOEP CHAT

by Melanie Gosling

28th May 2026

Breslau: a Bushveld Gem

One of the grand things about Breslau private game reserve is that you are not restricted to your vehicle.
During our recent visit to Breslau, just west of Mapungubwe National Park, we were free to wander down to the Limpopo River, sit under the trees and watch the swollen waters rolling by – while keeping an eye out for crocs.
And we could go for walks in the bush, feel the sun on our backs, see the puffs of dust from our footsteps and smell the strong scent where game had passed.
In the late afternoons, we would pack a few drinks and head out for a sundowner on a koppie or at a dam, and we’d be the only people for miles. Lizards watching us from the warm rocks and perhaps a few kudu or impala in the distance.
Breslau is 22° south of the equator so once the sun goes down darkness falls quickly. As Joseph Conrad wrote: “In the tropics night comes in one great leap.”
One of the best things we were free to do at Breslau was ride on the roof of my sister Julie’s Landy. Man, there is something just wonderful about rocking along on the top of the vehicle, feeling so happy and free.
Inky Meter of Knysna, a Breslau shareholder and our host, took us to see many wonderful things: ancient rock art in a cave, Iron Age walls, and the “Japanese Garden”, an area of stunted Mopani trees, some no higher than my hips. A fascinating spot with even more fascinating rocks and stones. We were all bent over staring at them and I wanted to shout: “Okay, who’s lost a contact lens?”
Meanwhile Cole had set up his two DJ decks, donned big headphones, and was “mixing cool lyrics on the fly”, while filming himself and “adding in cool videos of us on the Landy”. We couldn’t hear the music, just saw him dancing while working the decks – a really strange sight in the bush.
Riding home one night Cole and Emily saw a springhare in the spotlight from the roof of the Landy. They slid off in hot pursuit. They never caught it thank goodness, but it was hysterical watching their white legs in the wildly bobbing torchlight, darting and disappearing into the black bush, re-emerging – and falling.
Two of my best night sightings were a bronze-winged courser and a nagapie, sitting in a tree right next to the road. I just love those big ears and huge eyes.
Inky and her husband Arjen spent hours showing us the Breslau bushveld, but were also laid back: sitting around the fire at night, crickets singing, fire blazing, chatting or listening. There is nothing quite like a bushveld fire to generate geselligheid.
I am grateful to people like Inky and her family who chose – at a cost - to keep this piece of pristine bushveld as it is, both for the pleasure it gives them and all who visit, but far more importantly, for conserving this pristine corner of the country’s biodiversity, at a time when we’re losing it rapidly.

27/05/2026

Edition 1960 - 28 May 2026

Online today, printed copy tomorrow… enjoy reading this week’s issue!

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21/05/2026

STOEP CHAT

by Melanie Gosling

21st May 2026

Breslau Bushveld

Back in 1919 a man called Carl Shultz looked over the bushveld on the banks of the Limpopo River and loved it.
He decided to buy nine farms so that when he died each of his nine children would inherit a piece of this paradise.
One of those farms is called Breslau. Inky Meter of Knysna, a Schultz descendant, inherited a share in the farm that she first visited when she was just six months old. We were lucky enough to be invited to join her at Breslau, just west of Mapungubwe National Park.
Man, what a place. Breslau stretches for 4km along the Limpopo River, looking across into Botswana’s Tuli Game Reserve, and extends 7km inland.
And you know what? Breslau is the only one of those nine farms still in the family. All the rest have been sold.
When old man Schultz finally popped his clogs, he had not left
a specific farm to a specific child. The farm names were put in a hat and each child drew one. Inky’s grandmother, Bertha, drew Breslau.
“My grandmother lived on a farm near Brits and had never seen Breslau,” Inky said.
But some of Granny Bertha’s siblings had seen the farms. A couple of them came to her and said: “You drew a small farm, ours are much bigger. Why don’t you swop Breslau for one of our bigger farms?”
Bertha was cautious.
“She was obviously an astute woman and realised there must have been a very good reason why they would want to swop a bigger farm for a smaller one, so she said no, she would keep the smaller Breslau,” said Inky.
Good for Granny Bertha, because later surveys of Breslau showed it to be a very special place botanically.
“It’s highly regarded because of the variety of different habitats; riverine vegetation, mopane, thorn scrub, sandstone koppies and leeubossie,” Inky said.
The game loves it, and so do the 403 species of birds recorded there.
Inky’s camp is built at Schultz’s original camp, under a giant nyala tree. When Granny Bertha inherited Breslau, there was no electricity or running water.
“All cooking was done on open fires on the ground. I remember potbrood was made in a big cast iron pot. Oranges were the only fruit that lasted and my mom would pull up carrots on their farm and replant them at Breslau, so we had fresh carrots.”
Food was kept cool in a “safe” of fine mesh on a wooden frame, hung in the shade.
“My dad also made an oven in a hollowed-out ant heap close to camp.”
There are 11 other camps at Breslau, all belonging to Shultz descendants – but you cannot hear or see them.
It is really well managed. Two surveys by professionals have advised on the carrying capacity of the farm, while game counts every second year determine how many big and small game can be “taken off” by capture and relocation and by controlled, international trophy hunting. This helps fund the game farm.
As I write, I remember those wonderful game drives, campfires and the big, starry skies.
More about that next week.

20/05/2026

Edition 1959 - 21 May 2026

Read it online today and collect your printed copy tomorrow!

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14/05/2026

STOEP CHAT

by Melanie Gosling

14th May 2026

Kingdom of Mapungubwe

My word! You guys in Knysna and Plett have really been through the wringer with storms and floods. Here’s hoping things return to normal fast.
Meanwhile up here on the warm, sunny Limpopo River we’ve been learning about the intriguing history of Mapungubwe. Most people know about Mapungubwe’s golden rhino, but perhaps not so much about the 400-year-old civilization it came from.
The little rhino, made of thin gold moulded around a wooden rhino carving, was found in a grave of one of the royals who ruled over the Kingdom of Mapungubwe, a flourishing civilization that existed from about 900 AD to 1300 AD. A small golden bowl and sceptre were found with the rhino.
We saw only replicas at Mapungubwe National Park’s museum as the originals are housed at the University of Pretoria.
Archaeologists know that before the rise of the Mapungubwe Kingdom, San hunter-gathers lived in the region for about 100,000 years, and that humans have lived there continuously from about 2.5 million years ago.
Around 900 AD Iron Age farmers migrated from the north and settled at Mapungubwe, attracted by the fertile Limpopo River valley. They were the Zhizo people, ancestors of today’s Shona, Venda and Kalanga people.
From these farmers grew an entire civilization, where people not only farmed, but mined iron, copper and gold, becoming a “powerful southern African trade hub”. They transported these metals plus ivory, rhino horn and leopard skins to the east coast where they traded with Arab and Indian merchants for silk, cotton, Chinese porcelain and beautiful glass beads.
The kings, queens and ruling elites accumulated these luxury goods, plus huge numbers of cattle, which made them increasingly powerful. In about 1150 AD this powerful elite moved from the valley to the top of Mapungubwe Hill, while the commoners continued to live in the valley. This “solidified the development of a fully class-based society” with an enormous disparity between rich and poor.
Smaller communities had to pay tribute to the kings in the form of crops, cattle and other goods, and Mapungubwe rulers also taxed any gold that passed through their region.
SANParks writes that Mapungubwe is considered to be the first known kingdom in southern Africa that established this type of social hierarchy, where a single leader ruled over a centralized state.
No one knows how many successive kings and queens there were during Mapungubwe’s 400 years of existence, but archaeological excavations have uncovered 23 royal graves “indicating a succession of kings and queens”.
Like most civilizations, this one declined, eventually ending around 1300 AD. Academics suggest that a shift to drier conditions led to the collapse of the food supply, and the region could no longer support a population of 10,000.
“As agricultural resources failed, the trade routes that fueled the elite’s wealth shifted north, probably to the emerging centre of Great Zimbabwe.”
When we look out over Mapungubwe to the Limpopo now, all we see is bushveld, wildlife and birds. All that is left of this powerful, thriving civilization are local oral histories and relics in museums.
And perhaps there are some secrets still hidden in the bushveld soil.

13/05/2026

Edition 1958 - 14 May 2026

This week’s issue is online - printed copies will be distributed first thing tomorrow ☺

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07/05/2026

Good afternoon clients, please note that the residential area, Knysna Heights, will receive the latest copy of Action Ads on Friday the 8th May due to heavy expected rain again. The safety of our deliverers are very important.
In the meanwhile, Knysna CBD is stocked with Action Ads - please feel free to grab your copy. Stay warm! Regards, Action Ads team. xx

07/05/2026

STOEP CHAT

by Melanie Gosling

7th May 2026

Magnificent Mapungubwe

We’re on a wonderful road trip and have reached as far north as we can go in South Africa: the lovely Limpopo River.
We’re staying at Mapungubwe National Park – and it’s hot. It feels as if we’ve moved from the Southern Cape winter straight into summer. Shorts, slipslops and curtains closed at the Leokwe camp cottages to keep out the heat.
I love the bushveld, its endless undisturbed vegetation and the big silence. No cell phone reception or wifi here so nothing to detract from the experience.
They’ve had stacks of rain recently and the veld is lush. Trees, shrubs and grass are all green. My sister Julie – Action Ads’ owner – was amazed to see how Mapungubwe had changed since she was here just a year ago. At a viewing deck high above the Limpopo she remarked: “Last year this was all brown and rough and now it’s like green velvet.”
Poking out of the velvet plain below were two huge baobab trees, which can live for hundreds of years. In dry periods elephants dig into baobab trees with their tusks to get at the moisture in their porous trunks. Over time this can kill the trees. To prevent this, park staff have covered some of the baobab trunks with chicken-wire, wound tightly against the bark, so ellies can’t dig into them. Simple but clever.
We’ve seen so many birds and animals today. As I was sipping my morning coffee, I was excited to see a purple roller perched above the Landy. We don’t get them down south. Then vervet monkeys crept up to our widows to see what was for breakfast – but we’re too wily for them and they got nothing.
Next the kudu we had seen bedding down in the grass not far from our cottage last evening, stirred in the early sunlight and started to browse on the trees.
It’s great to drive along Mapungubwe’s roads that twist through magnificent, orange-red sandstone hills and cliffs that rise up from the green veld. There are cracks and tiny caves in the sandstone where dassies have made their homes, easy to spot because of the white streaks on the rocks from dassie urine.
There were herds of fat impala, blue wildebeest and zebra, many with foals, and some klipspringers. Plenty of foraging baboons, elephants eating or taking a mud bath and just one giraffe.
There are viewing decks built high above the confluence of Botswana’s Shashe River and the Limpopo, a breathtaking sight.
The Shashe meanders around huge flat sandbanks where I thought hippo were sunning themselves, but after a squizz through the binoculars I saw they were cattle on the Botswana side. Although on our side we have to stay in our vehicles apart from designated alighting spots, we saw people wandering all over the Botswana river bank, some carrying nets out for a day’s fishing.
Driving along the river road we saw very fresh elephant dung, some very small blobs, and were lucky to catch up with them – a female with her teenager and baby. What a special sight. The moment they turned into the riverine bush they were invisible.
I have not even touched on Mapungubwe’s fascinating history and archaeology. Next week!

06/05/2026

Edition 1957 - 7 May 2026

This weeks issue online - grab your printed copy tomorrow!

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30/04/2026

STOEP CHAT

by Melanie Gosling

30th April 2026

Unexpected Spin-Off from US War on Iran

Who would have thought the US-Israeli war on Iran could have any positive spin-offs for global energy?
We know this war has strangled 20% of global oil supply and that the world is feeling its effects. We’re paying more for fuel while the price of basic commodities like food is rising. Whenever the price of oil increases, it has a ripple effect throughout the global economy.
So what’s the positive spin-off for global energy from this war?
In a nutshell, it’s making world governments realise just how risky it is to rely on fossil fuels, and how easily the world’s energy supply can be held hostage at the whim of an unpredictable head of state. As a result, governments are starting to look towards safer energy alternatives like renewables.
Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, said in The Guardian that because of this war, governments would lose trust in fossil fuels and change their current energy strategies.
“There will be a significant boost to renewables and nuclear power and a further shift toward a more electrified future. And this will cut into the main markets for oil,” he said.
We’ve had energy crises before, in 1973, 1979, and in 2024 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Would the world not just continue with fossil fuel dependence afterwards?
No, says Birol: “The vase is broken, the damage is done. It will be very difficult to put the pieces back together.”
There are only a few regions in the world that produce oil and gas, whereas sun and wind are everywhere. The price of both solar and wind energy has come down enormously, and now they’re the cheapest forms of new electricity generation.
It’s quite ironic, isn’t it? The fossil fuel industry bankrolled Trump’s presidential campaign to the tune of $75 million, and the payback was that Trump would promote fossil fuel expansion (“drill, baby, drill!”) and stop the US transition to clean energy. He’s been doing both.
I doubt anyone expected Trump to attack Iran, leading to the world’s biggest oil crisis ever. True, this means the oil industry is making millions more now, but on the other hand governments are looking seriously at safer alternatives to fossil fuels.
As Guardian columnist George Monbiot wrote last week: “Donald Trump has done more to accelerate the energy transition than anyone else alive.”
The war has already triggered a global surge in the demand for electric vehicles, he writes, which has risen in the UK by 23% since the attack on Iran began, by 50% in Germany and 160% in France – with similar interest in India, South-East Asia and South Korea.
“Even in the US, where Trump has done everything possible to stymie the technology, there’s 20% more interest than before the war.”
The same goes for interest in solar panels and heat pumps.
Not what Trump had in mind, I’m pretty sure, and sad that it takes a war to get the world to move seriously towards renewable energy.
But at least something good is coming out of all that dreadful death and destruction.