Walkersons Hotel & Spa

You stay at Walkersons on an 800-hectare estate ten kilometers outside Dullstroom, where the highland air is cool and the trout dams are stocked. The hotel has twenty-seven rooms and two self-catering cottages, set among gardens and walking trails. The estate shares its landscape with the Dullstroom Riding Centre, where horses take riders through the hills.

The dining room serves meals with ingredients from the region, and the kitchen plates trout from the estate’s own dams. The gardens grow roses, hydrangeas, and native plants like the orange watsonia, which blooms in summer. Birdlife South Africa lists the estate as a member, so you may see Cape white-eyes or pin-tailed whydahs in the trees.

Guests walk the paved trails to the top of the mountain for views, or follow the paths by the dams where the water reflects the sky. The spa offers treatments in a garden setting, with a sauna added for winter. The hotel has been running for thirty years, with rooms that face the lakes or the gardens.

The estate is unfenced, so wildlife moves through the land. You might see antelope from the path, or hear birds in the trees above the terrace where meals are served.