The Rissington Rag - September 2024

WHERE DID WE GO AGAIN?

We drove just over 24000 kilometres in six months, which is the equivalent of travelling from Hazyview to Paris and back again by the most direct road route possible. We covered ten countries: Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Zambia; some in great detail. I feel as if I drove every single road in Tanzania – but more on that in the next edition.

WHO NEEDS A SABBATICAL?

Well, I think everyone does! We have come back from our journey totally fired up with enthusiasm and brimming with new ideas for the lodge. Over the next few months, you can expect the following from Rissington:

·         A fully pepped-up, funky and highly-trained front of house team with some happy new smiling faces alongside the old favourites. Professional, reliable, friendly service. Our renewed watchwords.

·         Increased effort going into energy- and planet-saving. We are taking a chunk of Rissington’s electricity demand off-grid and increasing our use of solar as well as stepping up our successful recycling plant and making our water systems more efficient.

·         We have employed the services of an expert horticulturalist to give the Rissington gardens a very gentle overhaul and, in the process, to improve our range of fresh herbs and salads. We love Rissington's gardens and we want to give them some attention.

·         We have some new menu ideas, especially when it comes to the vegan and vegetarian options. East Africa is SUPERB when it comes to tasty mildly-spicy food, so we are going to incorporate more of these dishes into our menu.

·         We are designing some new, long bicycle- and walking-trails on neighbouring properties with direct access from Rissington. This will be a mixture of single-track and jeep-track, some farmlands and some indigenous bush. There will be wonderful opportunities for birding, especially. Remember we have three bicycles here for use by guests – and a couple of willing guides too.

·         We have some other intriguing ideas as well: funky hand-towels to wash before dinner; a new music selection; a new look for the team; more blackout curtains in the rooms; lots of tasty little side-dishes and snacks; new presentation techniques; some fresh styles from East Africa, where they are very classy about clever little details in food and service.

So watch this space … and book your space at Rissington soon.

THE RETURN OF THE RAG AS WE KNOW IT

The Rag usually goes out every three months at the beginning of March, June, September and December but this year has been a bit different. This September Rag is just a quick one (at the end, not the beginning of September – sorry!) to let you know what you can expect for the rest of the year…

A ONE-OFF RISSINGTON RAG TRAVEL EDITION WILL COME OUT IN MID-OCTOBER

This will be a unique edition of the Rag, giving everyone a chance to read about our findings on the six-month journey to those ten African countries. It will contain some great photos, plenty of fun facts and statistics, handy travel advice, good news, bad news and many ideas. We will be giving you our list of the BEST and WORST in various categories. It will be enlightening, alarming and entertaining all at the same time. Some serious, some fantastical, some very light-hearted!

If you would like to catch up with the full story, you are welcome to check out our Tripcast Photo Diary, called Team Gap Year, which we put together while we travelled, with photos, reactions and commentary. It’s all very easy to use. Here’s the link:

https://tripcast.co/c/OjlJV0ZPLkA

To see the entire journey you will need to scroll down to the very beginning and work your way upwards. If you were following and seemed to drop off the list, just sign in again and find your place. Tripcast did seem to lose people sometimes. Please don't be one of those. We loved having all our vicarious fellow-travellers along with us so, if you were one of them: A BIG THANK YOU!

There will also be a Mega Photo Competition in the October Travel Special, with great prizes, so get revising! And please forward the details of the coming special edition to any keen travellers you know, or anyone who might be planning an African odyssey. We are going to be offering free advice to anyone who needs it, just as we are happy to do so for South African travel, whether people are staying at Rissington or not (but why wouldn’t they be?).

THE DECEMBER RAG WILL BE BACK TO NORMAL …

it will feature all the usual thought, merriment, competitions, deals and Christmas cheer and from then onwards, everything will be back to normal with our quarterly editions. You might notice a few minor changes to the layout and a few new features next year, but I think you will be comfortable with what we are going to do.

INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK

As you will know, Nonhlanhla has been handling the Rissington social media in my absence and I think she has done a great job. From now on we have therefore decided to share the responsibility. Nonhlanhla will do some of the day-to-day Rissington stories and I will try to step up and give more of the ‘bigger picture’ regarding what is going on in the area, to keep everyone informed. 

To this end, I have, of course, started my return to Rissington’s social media with a couple of dog pictures (what else?!) and then some photos of the amazing Springbok vs Argentina match in Nelspruit over the weekend. Take a look, if you haven’t already done so. You can sign up to follow us at any time on the website or on the covering email which would have sent you this Rag link.

It doesn’t matter how much I travel, I am always happy to get home and to feel the positive vibe that forever emanates from my fellow South Africans. Just look at these pictures of the sea of green and gold from the 40 000 people who filled Nelspruit’s beautiful Mbombela Stadium with their bright colours and enthusiastic yells and cheers. The result was 48 – 7 to the Springboks and we took home the Rugby Championship title, fought between the four major Southern Hemisphere Rugby nations. We have a fabulous country.

THE TEAM SAYS HELLO

Team Rissington has done an absolutely phenomenal job of keeping things ticking over at Rissington whilst I have been away on my travels and left me with an absolutely tiny pile in my in-tray along with plenty of emails from thrilled guests, telling me how good it has all been and how redundant I am. But I am not going anywhere, although we have a few more (much shorter!) journeys lined up for next year.

So let me get stuck into planning your special October edition and, later, the Christmas issue and in the meantime, we all send our very best wishes from a very warm September patch in Hazyview. Come and see us. We have missed you! 

Chris and the Team: Shirley, Natasha, Nonhlanhla, Princess, Nkateko, Rosa; Gertrude, Dudu, Yvonne, Angel, Conny and Dellina; Futhi, Betty, Noggs, Patience, Bonisile, Lilian, Mildreth, Maureen. Thandiwe and Felicia; Aubrey, Selby, Lucky and Peter; plus Philippa in the office, whom you may email on [email protected] for all your booking requirements. Or simply book online on www.rissington.co.za and tell us all about yourself in the ‘Special Requests’ box. Rusty and Bruno would love to see you too, just as they were pleased to see us again. Here's one of my favourite photos, taken of Rusty this time last year.