Reset, rethink - and don’t forget to breathe

The clear, wide dam has been getting gradually closer during our scenic hike on the foothills of the Klein Drakenstein Mountains near Paarl.

Now we’ve followed a track down to the shore and Maika Goetze, the owner of Cascade Country Manor, is stripping off and urging us to jump in. She points to a small inlet on the opposite bank, and says that’s the spot to swim for.

I’m dubious. The sun is bright on this spring morning, but the dam water feels icy. It’s deep too, and I can’t see the bottom after my first few squelchy, muddy steps. But a dam swim of about 210 metres is part of a mind, body and soul restoration weekend in the country Maika has designed. It’s all about breaking barriers, exploring new possibilities and conquering fears and limitations, so I take another tentative step forward, determined to get the hell on with it.

A slip, a splash, a shiver, and I’m in, striking out through the invigorating water and realising that the scenery is even more gorgeous from the water than from dry land. A view that was worth the chill. At the other end I scramble up the rocks, envelop my goose-bumped body in a towel and feel ridiculously proud of myself.

Earlier our hike led us through a field of buchu, a plant I’d never heard of before sipping a drink that looked like sparkling rosé wine but tasted bitter. That’s buchu, a herb touted as a treatment for colds and flu, kidney disorders, digestive ailments and cellulite. It’s native to the Cape floral kingdom, and grows happily on scrubby looking slopes around Paarl where this famous wine region’s more delicate grapes probably wouldn’t flourish.

Healthy drinks aren’t compulsory on the programme, so I replace the buchu with a soul-restoring Chardonnay. The food is healthy though, with a harvest table lunch set out in the olive groves presenting a dozen platters to pick at. There are several unusual salads, an impressive tower of soft cheese dotted with olives, crudités and dips, salamis and freshly baked bread. The dessert catches me out by looking like a small bowl of strawberries, but underneath lies a delicious Danish pastry prepared by chef Volker Goetze, Maika’s husband and co-owner.

The lunchtime wine was practical as well as hedonistic - I figured it would help me relax in the afternoon’s breathing lesson. I’ve been breathing for decades, but dance teacher Liz Surmon came to show us how to do it properly.

Liz has branched out into gyrotonics, a method of matching your breath to movement and breathing in more ways than seems possible given the simple mouth and nose combination.

She sets out stools near a stream in the rambling gardens, and has us inhale to counts of four, then suspend our breathe before exhaling. “Your diaphragm moves up and down 200,000 times a day, but if it doesn’t move optimally you can sit with all sorts of problems like bad posture,” she says.

With legs akimbo we sway from side to side, breathing and exhaling, then pant through our noses. As the exercises advance we use our eyes and arms, our legs and feet, and rock our spines in figures of eight.

“People come to me when they’re tired of living with aches and pains and they just want to feel comfortable in their bodies,” Liz says. “The diaphragm is such a huge muscle that if we get it to move optimally it has a huge influence on the whole body. You can increase activation of the nervous system and tone the vagus nerve through diaphragmatic breathing, and that has an influence on gut health.”

Some of the exercises are similar to yoga, but the look on Liz’s face suggest she’s taking this to another level. With eyes closed above a knowing smile, she looks not so much serene as positively orgasmic.

It’s so intriguing that we arrange for her to return the next day for a breathing-to-music class, and we joke that nobody is allowed to breath until tomorrow, because we don’t like over-achievers.

Cascade Country Manor is a glorious old mansion with dazzling white walls, arches and pillars all reflected back in the large outdoor pool. Inside, it’s homely rather than imperious, and the 15 individually designed bedrooms all have a private balcony or patio.

The hotel is a member of Cape Country Routes, a collective of individually-owned hotels and adventure activities strung along the Western and Eastern Cape from Cape Town to just beyond Port Elizabeth. Its members were flourishing until the Covid-19 lockdown hit, curtailing their businesses and draining spending money from the pockets of potential customers.

Maika has responded by planning women-only weekends for those who need to restore and revive themselves after holding households together during lockdown, and to help those whose careers have evaporated to rethink their future. “I think I’ve found the right partners to take a very practical approach that speaks to business leaders and also works at for home life,” she says. “Then there’s a hike and the swim across the dam for a physical challenge that you can overcome.”

Life coach Cornelia Burger will run sessions on how you talk, behave and relate to other people, and how they relate to you. A handicraft or baking session will encourage creativity, while yoga, an inspirational film evening and spa treatments complete the package that Maika hopes will help Cascade to reinvent itself too.

It might sound a bit airy-fairy, but Maika is a practical Namibian-born woman of German descent, so fluffy isn’t her thing. “Very few people are more sceptical than I am, so I had to experience all this and benefit from it myself before I could try to sell it to others,” she says.

Good food and wine will ensure there is none of that ‘finding yourself through deprivation’ malarkey. One aim is to encourage self-reflection, and some people find a glass of wine helps them to reflect, she says. “It’s not helpful to just narrow it down to a certain type. It’s aimed at women who want a break from their day-to-day life. Or mums who have been at home for months and are calling for help. But it’s more than just getting away for a night or two, because lots of rethinking and reorganising is happening. It’s going to give professionals or people who are moving into a different job a new view of themselves.”

Many men will also need a rethink and a reset after lockdown, but Maika believes a women-only environment is more conducive for a safer, caring and supportive atmosphere. You have to admit it’s true. In that chilly dam swim, my group of five women all encouraged, looked out for each other and laughed together, while men would have turned it into a competitive sport and tried to reach the other bank first.