Feet on the solid earth of the Klein Karoo, but with their hearts in the heavens

Brian Berkman meets hosts Bartel and Karin du Toit, who pride themselves on their luxurious yet very comfortable country boutique hotel located on a diversified farm with ostriches, alfalfa, barley and maize.

- Brian Berkman

Did you know we are in Little Jerusalem? That is how Bartel du Toit, of La Plume Farm and Boutique Guest House, begins our conversation. “Yes,” comes the reply, “on account of the many Jewish people in the early ostrich feather trade.”

“Yes,” he says, “but also because, like Jerusalem, we are surrounded by four mountains: the Kammanassie, Outeniqua, Swartberg and Rooiberg.”

The original Du Toits were Huguenots who first came to Franschhoek, but four generations of Bartel’s family have lived and farmed in Oudtshoorn. “My father had 60ha wine grapes and produced 1 000t of grapes annually. Today, there are no vineyards left in this area. This is a direct result of climate change,” he says.

Bartel’s father was instrumental in the building of the Kammanassie Dam and pipeline to the Volmoed area. “Everything comes down to rain. Without water you can’t do anything. Rain is a blessing from heaven. Here, look at the gooseflesh on my arm,” he says. Indeed, as he meets with Farmer’s Weekly, it is raining. “In the past seven and a half years we recorded 26ml of rain. Yesterday we had 3ml,” he says, referring to the 88-months-long drought that ended in December 2022.

Karin du Toit, Bartel’s wife and business partner, hails from the nearby Spies family of Schoemanshoek.

“We started with two rooms in 1998,” she says, explaining that it was when times were tough and, with a young family, they looked at ways to increase their income. “We built most of it ourselves, and for the first 12 years I cooked and Bartel braaied every night for guests,” she recalls.