Forest Edge Communal Areas
The Communal Areas at Forest Edge are open for use by all guests and allow for safe, free roaming in the large open spaces in Nature. There is a useful and popular self-guided eco-historic walk-about on site to help guests learn about the history, fauna, flora, water and waste-management of Forest Edge and the social structure of the area. There are benches scattered about.
More or less in the middle of the property there is a jungle gym, pool area and information board with mammal and bird charts and other nature information. In addition to each cottage’s private braai, there is also a great communal bonfire area popular with large groups or families who want to tell stories around the bonfire. There are benches around the log-stack and also a picnic bench and umbrella for parents to relax, while watching the little ones play. North of the bonfire area there is a wooden walkway leading to our secluded and forest facing meditation corner, complete with meditation spiral, yoga deck, benches and a bamboo fountain where we encourage guests to take a little alone time – it is also a good place from which to spot birds, animals and even fireflies in the evening.
On the Western end of the property are our very own woodcutter graves, from the original woodcutter families that lived on the property up to almost a century ago. We have only been able to identify some of the graves but it remains incredible to think this is where the souls described in Dalene Matthee’s “Circles in the Forest” and “Dreamforest” books have lived. This is also our maintenance area where we store and treat our water, our tool sheds and do firewood processing.
In terms of water storage, there are 3 ponds, an earth dam for storing irrigation water, a large reservoir and several rainwater storage tanks on the property. The ponds and dam have been stocked with Thilapia fish in 2009 and 2010.
To see these areas in relation to the rest of the property, please see the site map.
*** IMPORTANT: Although these areas are open to all guests, parents remain responsible for their children around the ponds, dams, pool, jungle gym etc and we discourage loud parties due to the nature of our eco-friendly establishment. Forest Edge is an eco-friendly self-catering nature-lovers retreat offering tranquility on the edge of the indigenous forest. This means that we try to live in tune with nature as much as possible and we try to avoid unnecessary noise and anything that can negatively impact on the environment.
Forest Edge is run along eco-friendly principles (we have no choice, as we receive no municipal services being out of town!) Therefore we have to catch, store, treat and pump our rain water for household and guests’ use. There is a biological septic tank for sewerage disposal and in general we try to recycle where possible (e.g. organic waste, wood, glass). We also re-use gray water from baths/sinks to water the garden. We do not feed or kill wild animals, but try and let them go about their normal business and we remove any snakes we should find on the property from time to time and place them very far from Forest Edge, deep in the forest (so far, we have never found one near a cottage, which we treat against snakes).
