A peek behind the scenes of life at Montusi: the Montusi children’s challenge.
The last three years have grown us at a much faster rate than those before. Part of that growth is learning to use all the facets of Montusi Living to the benefit of our guests.
We have learnt that Montusi mountain Lodge is a pretty special place for children!
While we don’t offer the kids’ clubs and supervised activities like other, more family-focused resorts, we have found that this amazing space gives families the opportunity to truly connect as they immerse themselves in nature.
Over these last winter school holidays, two of the three Montusi families went away on holiday, leaving two of our resident little people cousin-less.
In this unusual community, to be cousin-less is almost as traumatic as being parent-less (the last four members of our Montusi family have been together since birth).
Mic and I, the parents, were eyeballs deep in running our nice busy lodge in the Northern Drakensberg and so our two, cousin-less children (aged 7 and 9 years) needed entertaining. Away from the office. Badly!
A challenge was laid down: each day they would need to do something at Montusi, without us parents. Shock and horror! After some cajoling, they came around to the idea and so we began with the activities…
Day 1: Gardening with Goggie – A nice introduction to being away from the parents, since they would spend the day with the next best thing: their grandmother! Together, they tackled the mission of “dead-heading” Aloes with Jean, the garden queen. Success! Only a few scratches from the aloe thorns, and much happiness all around.
Day 2: Hiking with Victor – A little more trepidation as they would be with our hiking guide, Victor, and the guests (or “the guesters” as the kids call our visitors). As the guests gathered and Victor gave his introduction, the kids were terribly shy and nervous. They left the Reception stuck on Victor’s heels, heads down, but by the end of the hike, they were chatting away, assisting Victor as mini-guides! Another success!
Day 3: Horses – Phila and Mnce, the horsemen of The Northern Horse, showed the kids how to tack up their steeds and took them on a great out ride, complete with canters and river crossings. A third success!
Day 4, the final day: the ice cream challenge!
One would think this would be the easiest of the challenges, since “we all scream for ice cream!” Well, it turned out to be the only one they couldn’t complete!
The idea was to sample all of Montusi’s ice cream flavours between the 4 of us (we parents couldn’t resist the lure of ice cream): take a bite and send it around the table. It turns out 15 flavours were seven too many! And so this challenge defeated us!
Thus we can safely say that Montusi offers great opportunities for children to enjoy the mountains while their parents catch a few zzzz’s poolside!
