Sometimes it doesn’t take much to start something.   

Sandra Antrobus used to be a Karoo schoolteacher.  She married a farmer and went to live on a farm outside Cradock in 1983.  The farmhouse was ancient (circa 1860), the rooms painted so often that it was difficult to get in the door.  Sandra, being of an energetic persuasion, decided to get stuck in and clean up.  While stripping off the generations of dingy paint she discovered that the farmhouse, under all that muck, had a gentle charm and basic prettiness.  This discovery led to the realisation that she liked restoring old houses.  Really, REALLY, liked restoring old houses. When the Olive Schreiner house in Cradock was being transformed into a museum in 1989, Sandra got stuck in again, but this time as an assistant to the restoration experts who had been called in to work on the house.  It was the best experience for an enthusiastic beginner, and lit a fire that was destined to heat up the town. Cradock is soaked in history.  As a strategic frontier town and a major staging post into the interior since 1814, it had a large population of craftsmen connected with transport – wagon-makers, woodworkers and the like.  Many of these lived in Market Street, in a row of houses built according to a hodge-podge of different styles.  Times were good in the early days.  But when the railways came at the turn of the last century, along with roads and the dreaded motor-car, the wagonmakers found themselves out of work and the row of houses along Market Street fell on hard times.  By the beginning of the 1990s the whole street was almost a slum and the properties could hardly be given away.  This is just the time that Sandra Antrobus, fresh and eager from restoring her own farmhouse and learning from experts during the work on the Schreiner house, was looking for something to do. The owners of the houses in Market Street offloaded their properties with a sigh of relief, and Sandra set to work.  Each particular house was stripped down to its unique personality, and the whole row was turned into an unusual B&B.   The concept was relatively successful, but what was lacking was a central hub – a focus point for the street of cottages.  And on the corner of Market Street stands the Victoria Hotel.  This hotel was an eyesore.  Market Street, being a poor area only just emerging from neglect, had a bad reputation.  Drinkers from the hotel would cause a ruckus in the street while Sandra’s guests were trying to sleep.  The hotel itself was charmless, its original architectural features buried under unimaginative renovation.  So Sandra solved the problem - she bought the hotel for the proverbial song and made it the hub of ‘Die Tuishuise’ – the street of houses, cottages and central hotel that makes up a unique accommodation experience.

It is difficult to explain exactly why Die Tuishuise is so special.  Go to the website www.tuishuise.co.za and see for yourself.   The most remarkable thing, as Sandra’s daughter Lisa says, is that when Sandra is praised for her vision in revitalising Cradock’s accommodation industry, she can only reply that she was merely a passionate restorer who didn’t know when to stop!

This fighting spirit has now been passed on to her daughter Lisa, who is busy creating a Karoo getaway in Cradock that is making the town important on a new kind of frontier.  Tourists visit Cradock from the tour busses going from Lesotho to Addo, the more adventurous freelance traveller with a car and a yen to leave the beaten track, sportspeople coming to the various sporting events in the clear Karoo air, and government delegations who use Cradock as it was always viewed; as the gateway to the interior.

But the energetic people of Cradock are not sitting back and waiting for custom.  With the World Cup round the corner, they have dreamed up an unusual way to benefit.    “There’s a gap in the market for South Africans who want to get away to some peace and quiet during the tournament,’ says Lisa.  “We have scheduled a 31-day programme of events – catering for every member of the family – that will give people something to do.   So there’s a cooking school featuring authentic Karoo cooking; fly-fishing clinics, a photographic course, egg-hunting and art for the kids, film-making – 31 different offerings that are sure to appeal to every taste and inclination.” The town is also linking up with the Grahamstown Festival to offer the Voorkamer Fees, Boeremusiek Konserte (complete with lang-arm dancing), and a number of other real Karoo activities.  Combined with the stuff that already occurs in that area – like the Spa, the Mountain Zebra Park, the sports, the clear Karoo air – and of course the famous Karoo cuisine.  The Eastern Cape is no slouch when it comes to innovative and energetic tourism ideas, and it is people like Sandra and Lisa Antrobus – combining their Gallic flair, English courage, South African hospitality and Karoo practicality – who are contributing towards the region’s success.