If I was ever on a television game show and the presenter asked me to name the best child-friendly family hotel in the world, I would say without a second’s hesitation, “the Cathedral Peak Hotel”.

I wish that, when I was a child, we had stayed in hotels like this one.  Instead my parents, being notoriously frugal, used to opt for creepy motels in out-of-the-way places where we would eat a picnic supper out of a basket under low-wattage bulbs and be woken by loud mysterious crashes in the middle of the night.  This was when we weren’t living out of the back of the Land-rover, or pitching tents in soggy fields in howling gales. I must be fair to the folks – when you’re a child, roughing it isn’t too much of a problem, and my childhood holiday memories have more to do with exploring rock pools, roaming mountainsides and canoeing seaside lagoons than peeling plaster and dodgy plumbing. But the Cathedral Peak is a dream for children and families.  The hotel hits the spot from all sides:  at first sight it is luxury on a stick, with glorious gardens, gleaming white paint and polished brass, a reception hall with a carpet you could get lost in, bright chandeliers and perky staff.  So that ticks off the facilities for the big people.  For the little people there is a kiddies’ lounge, numerous playgrounds, huge areas to explore, mountain walks that range from an easy before-tea stroll to a hands-and-knees climb.  The VIRs (Very Important Rugrats) get their own dining room, their own menu, babysitters, games, gardens and television for rainy days. The hotel has always been family-owned, from the days when a young farmer, Albert van der Riet, built a small resort on his farm and opened it to the public just before Christmas 1938.  The tariff then was 13/6d (R1,35) per day, meals included. The hotel is still owned by the Van der Riet family, although the complex has grown to an unrecognisable size and it is a pretty good bet that the prices have gone up as well.  In fact, Cathedral Peak Hotel is more like a small city, with its own kitchens, offices, chapel (for weddings), chalets (for honeymooners), hotel suites, helicopter landing cross, vegetable gardens, generators, water filtration and waste disposal.  Arriving at night, it looks from afar like a space station hanging on the mountainside, gleaming with yellow lights, fragrant with the smell of roses in the dusk. Despite the sprawl, management runs like clockwork.  Check-in is a pleasure, there are myriad staff wandering around with name badges which offer assistance if you look remotely disorientated (which happens fairly often as the compound is bewilderingly large and it takes a while to get to grips with the geography of it).  Actually, if I could suggest something to hotel management, they might put up a few signposts around the hotel, like those ‘You are Here’ boards that you get at shopping centres. The dining room, for instance, is a huge cavernous room that seats several hundred people and feeds them effortlessly from a mile-long buffet with food that includes sushi, salads, roasts and grills, stews and curries, puddings, fruits and cheese platters.  The amount of food is quite dizzying. In the foyer of the main building is a scale model of the mountains that surround the hotel, and this is a marvellous toy with tiny lights that show where the different famous peaks, streams and landmarks can be found.  There are maps of mountain biking routes, walking trails and jogging tracks, and schedules of guided walks. The Cathedral Peak Hotel, after all, is all about the mountains.  The scale model shows very clearly the grand and imposing Drakensberg, and it is impossible to stay at the hotel for any length of time without feeling that atavistic pull to go scrambling up the gorges and cliffs of the ancient crags.  In spring, the hotel gardens would be ablaze with white roses, while the slopes will host the shyer indigenous mountain flowers; in summer the shaded streams would be refreshingly cool for hot feet; in autumn the trees would be fiery with the different coloured leaves; and in winter of course there is the snow.  In fact, if I was still in that game show programme and I was asked which season is the best for visiting the place I would have to forego the million-rand prize, because I simply can’t decide.  When you’re there in the heat of summer you long to see the peaks blanketed in snow and enjoy the warm lounges with fires and hot toddies; when you’re there in winter you wonder what it must be like to enjoy the hot sun while you wander along the trails and swim in the streams.  The answer, I would imagine, is to visit the hotel in each of the seasons.  I’m sure the hotel staff would make you feel like a game show jackpot winner!