The Boathouse

Seclusion. Quiet. Natural beauty. There’s plenty of all three at The Boathouse on Boskop Dam, a delightful spot where you can relax, do a bit of fishing, canoeing, and birding, and watch gorgeous sunsets from the waterside deck. Riaan Hattingh reports.

- Riaan Hattingh

Only 115km from Johannesburg, and 20km from Potchefstroom, lies the beautiful Boskop Dam, a renowned fly-fishing venue nestling between low hills. It adjoins the Boskop Dam Game Reserve. Directly across the dam from the reserve, also on the shoreline, is a secluded gem that provides the perfect getaway spot: The Boathouse, a cosy cottage tucked away under large trees. It is owned by Nicholas Petersen, whose association with this lovely spot goes back several generations. “My late grandfather and father purchased and developed several farms in the area, built houses and shops, and sold them again,” he explains. “They developed the Tanglewood Nature Estate down the road from us and operated it under a different name for some time. We now have the cottage and farm on this 7ha piece of land, right here on the shores of the dam.

“As kids, we used to fish from the spot where the cottage was built. To get to a toilet, we had to walk to our house on the adjacent property, so we built a toilet here for convenience. It soon turned into a cottage, all of it built from materials my father had left over from his building projects, and sourced through barters; almost no money was spent on it.

“For years, the cottage was a weekend gathering place for friends and family, and we opened it to the public in 2014.”