Table of contents for Dec 2025/Jan 2026 in go!

DON'T MISS OUR NEXT ISSUE! The February/March magazine will be on sale at retailers from 23 January 2026. By the time we reach the last month or two of the year, people are pretty much toast. There are exams to be written, budgets to be finalised and projects to be completed. “It's like trying to drag a team of dead donkeys across the finish line,” a friend recently complained about his team struggling to meet their deadline. The only thing getting most of us through this patch is thinking about the week or three of doing nothing during that glorious time between the old and new year. Preferably on a beach somewhere, where the ocean is a deep blue and the sound of the waves lulls us to sleep. If…

SomersetWest offers plenty of viewpoints, most of them from the Helderberg. Now you can get even more views from the newly proclaimed Schapenberg Nature Reserve (only 14ha) – follow a short footpath to look out over the town, the Helderberg itself and False Bay. The main aim of the reserve is to protect the rare renosterveld found in the area. Opening times: Sunrise to sunset – entrance is free. Where? At the end of Romulus Street, in the suburb of Rome Glen.…

It's cool and shady in the coastal forest. Birds chirp and chatter. Waves boom in the distance. It's overcast, but when you leave the trees behind and climb to the crest of the dune, you still have to blink to get used to the bright sky. At your feet, the dune rolls down to the water's edge. You kick off your flip-flops and run down with the kids. The sun breaks through the clouds. How is it possible that there's no one else here? Yup, this is your average morning on the Shipwreck Trail, a laid-back adventure that's only really a “hike” in the most basic sense of the word. It's Day 2; 9.25 am. A river mouth glints up ahead, and some signs of human habitation. This is the…

My family seldom went to the sea at Christmas time. My dad worked in the fruit industry – December was a time to harvest, not holiday. Because of his commitments, Christmas was always just a relaxed meal with close family. Not so my husband's family… Every December, they all gather in L'Agulhas on the Southern Cape coast, in a house that has been in the family since the 1920s. It opens straight onto the beach and the famous lighthouse winks at you from the right. How lucky can you be? Almost all the houses in the street are occupied by family members on his side. As an “in-law”, I've tried to keep track of who's who and how everyone is related over the years. The plan was usually this: We…

Of all the festive days in December, I like New Year's Eve the best – probably because I can get away with celebrating this “big” day in a small way. For the last two decades, every time the holiday season has rolled around, I've made the long, lorry-filled drive from Cape Town to Upington, where I grew up. My parents, brother and many of the extended Louw family still live there. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are made up of a series of meals (my mom always makes sure there's gammon) with my aunts and uncles, cousins – and everyone's children in the swimming pool. We even gather on Boxing Day if there are still leftovers. Those days are heavy with family, food and laughter. So, as a self-diagnosed introvert,…

This past winter, as has become my habit, I booked myself a few nights at Lower Sabie rest camp. A visit to the Kruger is all about trying to max out my photo-taking opportunities. To my mind, the Lower Sabie area delivers the best results. One of my favourite locations is the waterhole on the S130 (Gomondwane Loop) and I usually spend a lot of time there. But sadly it was dry as a bone in the winter of 2025 and I had to find other photographic hotspots. The N'watimhiri Dam still had a little bit of water left. Arriving there, I noticed a pair of saddle-billed storks, which seemed to be resident, feeding their now almost grown-up chick. I watched as the adults spent the whole day pottering around…

Buffeljagsrivier is surrounded by farms. The river that gives the village its name flows past. There are two bridges – one for cars, one for trains – and, in the part where I stay, a few houses, a bottle store, a café and a cheese factory. Not much happens here, but also a little bit more than you might expect. Things hum on the last weekend of the month, with special focus around the bottle store and the café. The latter is owned by Maryna, at her post seven days a week. I rent a couple of rooms where I also have my studio and a small gallery – it's in the big building in front of the café. The open yard right outside my window is where trucks come…

NIGHT WATCH Why is January so hot? Does the distance of the earth from the sun have anything to do with how hot a summer feels? It does, but only to a limited extent… First, let's talk about measuring distances in astronomy. Using kilometres is a clumsy way to do it, because the distances in question are so massive. That's why astronomists use something called an astronomical unit (au), which is the average distance between the earth and the sun, rounded offto 150 million kilometres. Because the earth's orbit around the sun is slightly elliptical, it reaches its closest point to the sun, known as the perihelion, on 3 January, at a distance of 0.98au (about 147100000km). By 6 July 2026, at the aphelion – or furthest point – we'll…

For the past ten years, I've been celebrating Christmas far from where I come from. A lot has changed since I was a donkey in the nativity play of our rural Dutch Reformed church. I live in a city now, in another country, on another continent. December in Germany is dark and impossibly cold. When I think of the Christmas celebrations of my childhood, on our farm near Augrabies in the Northern Cape, I fondly remember the quirky, unique nature of our gatherings. We did the “good food and togetherness” part of Christmas, but not the gifts. As plaasjapies, we regarded malls with suspicion. When we had no choice but to enter one, we studied the map at the entrance to make sure we had an escape route. Purposeful, in…

This year I'll be spending Christmas and New Year's Eve in Kaapsehoop, Mpumalanga, for the 21st time. After two decades, the details of the various years get a bit hazy. (A bit like the view, when the mist rolls in.) Some years we had prim and proper family gatherings; other years bordered on the absurd. One thing is certain: There's a 90% chance that we'll sit around a fireplace in knitted sweaters, drinking glühwein on the eastern escarpment. Hot South African Christmases happen elsewhere, not here. For our first Christmas in our newly built house all those years ago, we didn't have a blade of grass for a lawn. My daughters and their cousins were covered in mud after jumping on the trampoline. The Year of the Flopped Pumpkin Tart…

Any reason to celebrate is reason enough: birthdays, religious holidays, future chapters, milestones from the past… One surreal festive season happened in 2013. It was 6 December, a Friday, at 3.37 am. Restless branches were playing percussion on the tin roof of my bedroom. In my hand, my phone was lit like a Christmas tree, teeming with news of Madiba's death, which had been announced by Jacob Zuma on national television a few moments before midnight. For some time, I lost myself in the void of the Internet, suspended in the outpouring of mourning, well wishes and shared grief, feeling things oddly vicariously, too numb to summon my own thoughts. When the sun came up, there were exhibitions, speeches, lampposts with photographs, flowers and cards, clutched notebooks and phones, press…

As a child, New Year's Eve was the pinnacle of excitement. My mom, the optimist, would suggest an afternoon nap so my siblings and I could stay up late. A nap? I'd lie there vibrating with anticipation, dreaming of the snacks: devilled eggs; cheeses with exotic names like Roquefort and Boursin; pigs in blankets… all the delicacies usually reserved for adults only. The thrill of being allowed to party with the grown-ups was almost too much. People seemed happy purely because of the occasion. Us kids would get caught up in the spirit and we'd dance to 80s' pop, but also to Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela. I couldn't wait for the clock to strike 12, when fireworks would explode across the sky in a psychedelic display. When I reached…

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Talk to different people and you'll find that they use different names, but Waenhuiskrans, Arniston and Kassiesbaai all refer to the same place. Kassiesbaai is the original fishing village, with its white-washed houses on the beach; Arniston and Waenhuiskrans refer to the holiday-town part. So, why does this place have so many names? “In the 1970s, residents voted to decide on the name of the town,” says Hannes van Zyl, who has been spending his holidays here for nearly 25 years. We're chatting in their house in Uys Street, which was once the first hotel in the village. “Waenhuiskrans won. But, in the spirit of community, they registered the runner-up as well. It's the only town in the country with two official names, both still in use.” Indeed, you'll see…

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By the time the sun's fingertips reached the mountain, Colinas de Arribas was already small below me. I was panting. Not even the first hill of the famous Hospitales route showed mercy. I was grateful that the auberge had served breakfast early in the morning, because at 27 km, this was going to be a long day. The first 21 km go over a mountain called Sierra de Fonfaraón, where there is no infrastructure. You need to carry enough water for the whole day. The Hospitales route passes the ruins of three medieval pilgrim shelters, Paradiella, Fonfaraón and Valparaiso, and is considered by modern pilgrims to be one of the three most epic stages on any Camino. (The other two being the stage between St-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Roncesvalles on the French…

WITSAND BY THE SEA Little Paradise This laid-back beach house overlooks the Breede River estuary and Cape Infanta in the distance. It's right on the main beach, but the dunes shelter you on both sides and hide you from the neighbouring houses. When you sit in the living area on the top floor, the dunes feel close enough to touch. Indeed, the sand nearly swallowed the house in 2015 and the roof collapsed under the weight. The house has since been fully restored and there's a dune rehabilitation project in place to prevent it from happening again. Little Paradise has a long history that goes back further than the advance of sand. The place was first known as Opstalletjie. Built in 1930, it was one of the first residences in…

We usually spend Christmas with my mom's family, on a farm near Citrusdal owned by two of her brothers. She's one of six children and almost all of them have their own families… You can imagine how many people flock to the farm by the time Christmas Day rolls around. (Now that I'm at the point of planning my wedding, we've realised that my side of the family alone will make up half of our entire guest list!) A successful Christmas Day requires serious pre-planning – everyone plays their part to provide the food, drink and entertainment. The day itself is always full of happy chaos: shrieking children showing off new water guns; pandemonium in the kitchen, where a bewildering array of dishes are underway – everything from spanakopita to…

Idon't have childhood memories of counting down to midnight on New Year's Eve. That only really became a thing when I was a teenager. I do clearly remember one New Year's Day on Bikini Beach in Gordon's Bay. People thronged like sardines, everyone excited about the year ahead. All except one guy – a young policeman. I felt so sorry for him. What did he do to get the job of reprimanding people drinking in public? It was a perfect summer's day on the busiest holiday of the year. A baptism of fire if I ever saw one… In movies, the New Year countdown always looks so romantic: a stirring soundtrack, sparklers, people with perfect white teeth, glasses full of sparkling wine, everything happening in slow motion… So lovely and…

It's always summer somewhere in the world – especially in places where cricket is played. My high school years coincided with South Africa's reintroduction to international cricket. Our first tour since readmission was in 1991, under the captaincy of Clive Rice. The TV images in our living rooms were hazy – in part because spectators set off fireworks in the stands, and also because the air in Calcutta, Gwalior or New Delhi was smoggy with tuk-tuk exhaust fumes. Later, during my university years, satellite TV – and SuperSport – ensured better quality broadcasts. During the December holidays on our farm near Cradock in the Eastern Cape, I revelled in this new luxury. Traditionally, there's a test match between Christmas and New Year, starting on Boxing Day. I'd take up my…

Acclaimed wildlife photographers Peter and Beverly Pickford spent four years working on their latest book project, Wild Ocean – a portrait of some of the earth's last remaining wild marine environments and shorelines. The 400 pages take us on a journey from Alaska to Australia, while issuing a call to action: We must all play a part in protecting our oceans for the sake of their future – and ours. Peter shares his inspiration for the project: “About 70% of the earth's surface is water, and almost all of that water is ocean. We come to its edge and let the emotions in: serenity, if the ocean is calm; excitement, if it's rushing and wild; awe and fear if it's angry. “But standing on the threshold is only comprehending the…

Any cricket team would give their non-bowling arms to have a versatile superstar like Mahendra Singh Dhoni – ruthless wicketkeeper, devastating batsman and still India's most successful captain ever – in its ranks. Aside from the fact that Dhoni and the Mahindra XUV700 have similar first names, and that they share a subcontinental heritage, the Mahindra also plays much the same role that MS played in a cricket context. The seven-seater XUV700 – equipped with a punchy 2.0-litre turbo engine and a luxurious interior with all the modern conveniences and safety features that buyers expect these days – is leading an assault on the local car market. As a brand, Mahindra is firmly on the front foot. Looking at South African car sales over the past few months, Mahindra regularly…

The lawnmowers of the wild Zebras eat all kinds of tall grasses and graze for most of the day. In this way, they keep grassland under control and make it easier for other animals that only eat shorter grass to reach their food. Mountain zebra There are two subspecies that look very similar, but are found in different regions: The Cape mountain zebra used to roam many of the mountain ranges south of the Orange River, but they're now restricted to nature reserves in the Northern Cape, Western Cape and Southern Cape. The Hartmann's mountain zebra has a heavier build and occurs in the desert landscapes of Augrabies Falls National Park, |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park, and some places in Namibia. Why do zebras have stripes? Scientists haven't figured out why these…