Prime Farming Country
Complain all you want about how far away it is from anywhere else; once you get to Rhodes, all will be forgiven. Home to hook-jawed rainbow trout, grouchy old guys in deerstalker caps and the legendary Rhodes Mountain Bike Challenge, this charming and leafy little village utterly demands further exploration. But seeing it’s a helluva drive from just about anywhere in the country, plan to visit for at least a week.
The village was originally founded in 1891 on the farm Tintern, after the owner Jim Vorster agreed to 100 plots being sold and on condition of naming it after the then Prime Minister of the Cape, Cecil John Rhodes. Contemporary country living is a lot less testing these days, and visitors will be charmed by a laid-back and decidedly rural lifestyle.
Dominated by the majestic buttresses of the southern ranges of the Drakensberg, the Victorian-era dorp slumbers amidst the foothills of the plateau rising up towards the high Lesotho ranges. This is prime Eastern Cape sheep farming country, and a century or so ago it was an area where diamond smugglers, cattle rustlers and gamblers ruled the roost. Before them, only the San hunted in the high mountains during summer until the first European farmers settled in Rhodes in the 1880s.