Stay at Fish Eagle River Lodge, Hermon

Hermon is all but a dot on the map yet this tiny village with merely a 100 residents is stunning beyond its means.

Hermon, a 10-minute drive outside of Riebeek Kasteel lies on the route of Wellington and Gouda. I found the existence of this little village while searching for a new but short distance town to explore on Google Maps. Seeing that we still had 140 towns left from the 193 towns in the Western Cape to visit, searching for unknown villages like Hermon seemed perfect.

Courtney and I needed a break from our all-time busy schedules and unfortunately, we couldn’t get the entire weekend off. So we drove an hour straight after work to our resting place for the night at Fish Eagle River Lodge.

Stay the night

And a night we stayed.

Fish Eagle River Lodge is both a B&B and self-catering accommodation. A B&B made sense seeing that we were only here for one night. Driving along the N7 stretch that bore several road works, turning onto rural Kalbaskraal and through the mountainous stretch of the R46 lies our stunning rest place with the outline of mountain peaks and the sound of the Berg River in the background.

Steve, our host took us up to our room and not only was there a balcony, but we also had two on either side of the room; overlooking fields of lushes vegetation. The room had everything we needed such as a fridge that was stocked with various drinks and a kettle with it’s serving crockery. The tv had the correct amount of channels (we struggled with getting signal though) along with a gorgeous dressing table that I would love to have.

The bathroom was spacious with a cobblestone shower. The balcony from the front overlooks the railway where coal trains pass by and their amazing olive and wine farm grounds. On the other end, one sees hills and treetops while the autumn leaves fall to the wet ground along the slow-moving river.

You won’t want to leave

And it’s true. It has everything you need. From tranquility to peacefulness and never-ending mountain ridges, it’s an overload of pure silence. With the odd noise of birds and chickens in the nearby pen, one would swear you in a world of your own.

Even though the weather seemed gloomy and rained the entire day on Sunday, it was still the perfect opportunity to grab an umbrella and make the magic of the area easily capable of entertaining one for a weekend.

Any good activities?

Definitely! There are a few cool things to do especially in nearby towns. Here is a list of activities to dive into:

• With Koeksisters and Hanepoot grapes on the menu, it’s worth going to Du Vlei farmstall
• Take a game drive at Bartholomeus Klip Hermon Private Nature Reserve
• Explore Riebeek Kasteel and their amazing restaurants

Until the next adventure.