Back in 1919 a man called Carl Shultz looked over the bushveld on the banks of the Limpopo River and loved it. He decided to buy nine farms so that when he died each of his nine children would inherit a piece of this paradise.
One of those farms is called Breslau. Inky Meter of Knysna, a Schultz descendant, inherited a share in the farm that she first visited when she was just six months old. We were lucky enough to be invited to join her at Breslau, just west of Mapungubwe National Park. Man, what a place. Breslau stretches for 4km along the Limpopo River, looking across into Botswana’s Tuli Game Reserve, and extends 7km inland. And you know what? Breslau is the only one of those nine farms still in the family. All the rest have been sold. When old man Schultz finally popped his clogs, he had not left a specific farm to a specific child. The farm names were put in a hat and each child drew one. Inky’s grandmother, Bertha, drew Breslau. “My grandmother lived on a farm near Brits and had never seen Breslau,” Inky said. But some of Granny Bertha’s siblings had seen the farms. A couple of them came to her and said: “You drew a small farm, ours are much bigger. Why don’t you swop Breslau for one of our bigger farms?” Bertha was cautious. “She was obviously an astute woman and realised there must have been a very good reason why they would want to swop a bigger farm for a smaller one, so she said no, she would keep the smaller Breslau,” said Inky. Good for Granny Bertha, because later surveys of Breslau showed it to be a very special place botanically. “It’s highly regarded because of the variety of different habitats; riverine vegetation, mopane, thorn scrub, sandstone koppies and leeubossie,” Inky said. The game loves it, and so do the 403 species of birds recorded there. Inky’s camp is built at Schultz’s original camp, under a giant nyala tree. When Granny Bertha inherited Breslau, there was no electricity or running water. “All cooking was done on open fires on the ground. I remember potbrood was made in a big cast iron pot. Oranges were the only fruit that lasted and my mom would pull up carrots on their farm and replant them at Breslau, so we had fresh carrots.” Food was kept cool in a “safe” of fine mesh on a wooden frame, hung in the shade. “My dad also made an oven in a hollowed-out ant heap close to camp.” There are 11 other camps at Breslau, all belonging to Shultz descendants – but you cannot hear or see them. It is really well managed. Two surveys by professionals have advised on the carrying capacity of the farm, while game counts every second year determine how many big and small game can be “taken off” by capture and relocation and by controlled, international trophy hunting. This helps fund the game farm. As I write, I remember those wonderful game drives, campfires and the big, starry skies. More about that next week.
