Never-ending fun options

Sparkling Waters is 50 kilometres from Rustenburg off the R104 in the Rietfontein Valley, close to Marikana, between the Olifantshoek and Buffelspoort dams. The resort — it's more a resort than a hotel — sits on roughly five hectares, a comfortable, friendly, old-fashioned family place with so much to do that even the most hyper kids should be passed out by 8pm. On top of the canopy tour, which is next to the hotel, there's — breathe in — action cricket, horse riding, squash, volleyball, tennis, a diving board, paintball, a trampoline, outdoor sauna, snooker room, bicycle hire and the dubious-sounding crossbow pistol shooting, which is actually pretty innocuous, good fun and well policed. All that and the spa to boot, with lists of treatments like an A to Z of modern contemporary therapies.

People make the place

We've said this so many times before — it's the people who run places that make the difference. And Sparkling Waters doesn't have just one caring parent, it has many. The ever-inventive Rei Engels looks after operations and is forever coming up with ideas to throw at his visitors. Lida is his wife, nurturing the spa and co-ordinating a phalanx of up to 12 therapists in high season. Their pals Derek and Shirley Baum are active partners — Shirley takes care of housekeeping and her husband Derek looks after the money.

With management like that there's not much that slips under the radar — and it shows. The place has the feel of a well-oiled machine with staff everywhere, mowing lawns, watering the garden, ferrying drinks and always cleaning something.

The layout of the resort is expansive — two rows of spacious rooms edge a huge lawn, the other side of which is the pool, mini-golf course and tennis courts. Further up the hill under the jacarandas, the family rooms sit in landscaped gardens. All the rooms are air conditioned and have DStv. The dining room is on the east side, occupying the old Tudor-style building that was a school in the 1940s. The spa, newest of all, overlooks the river, a massive thatched building which had to be big enough to span the large second pool (it is now heated for winter use).

Our advice would be to choose a room with the lawn in front — you can sit on the balcony and contemplate that scabrous minigolf course and, less galling, the Magalies mountains further off.

Sharpish down the kloof

In those mountains is the Magaliesberg Canopy Tour. It's put together by the same team that operates similar tree-top slides in the Karkloof near Howick and in the Tsitsikamma forest. The difference with Magaliesberg, as they might say in the movies, is that 'no trees were hurt in the making of this ride.' Each platform — there are 11 — is rock based and you make your way down Ysterhout Kloof from side to side. It's not as white-knuckle as the new Skyways tour at Hazyview, or as densely green as Karkloof, but it's different, those golden Pre-Cambrian rock faces speeding towards you as you zigzag down the gorge.

A canopy tour works like this: you drive to the top of the gorge, accompanied by two guides. One slides ahead (to receive you) and the other sets you up with harness, helmet, safety ropes and carabiners. You sit in the harness and slide down to the next platform, braking with your (heavily gloved) hand on the steel cable, above and behind you. The longest Magaliesberg section is 140 metres, plenty of time to check out the quartzitic sandstone rocks below and the Verreauxs' eagles above, if you're lucky. It all takes about two-and-a-half hours.

Back to the spa's indulgences

Other than a cold beer at the pool bar, the best thing after a canopy tour is a bout of spa pampering. The choices are dizzying, but as a guide, the signature treatment is a pinotage grape seed body exfoliation, followed by a red grape seed hydrotherapy treatment, a full body massage and a facial. Those three hours will set you back R1020, but it's just as rewarding having a hot stone massage for R280. Anyone who's been to the more up-market spas will know that's seriously good value for money. But a word of warning — any of the deep tissue massages will knock you out for most of the day so go foefie sliding before, not after, a treatment or you might end up as rock art, splayed on a cliff face having dreamily forgotten to brake.

By the Saturday evening of a typical weekend away, food is high on the list of priorities, exercise options being what they are. Here Sparkling Waters doesn't skimp on choice either. There's a giant buffet in the Tudor-styled dining room, to which you're welcome to return and return and return. It's all fairly standard fare (chicken, fish, meat, salads), but lots of it, and with the odd exotic twist such as a Mongolian barbeque. Outside on the patio there's a large braai-pit for Sunday shindigs. They give the kids marshmallows to toast and are very fond of theme events for these end-of-week parties. Think Macbeth's Potjiekos Evening.

Sparkling Waters is the kind of place Zim used to do so well — that old-school, Slasto-and-polish type spot that became like an old friend, returned to again and again because the kids could run free, there's space aplenty and it has no airs and graces. The hotel has had its fair share of industry accolades and, if it keeps up the good work, it should do very well in next year's Getaway Top 10. We recommend it heartily.

For more info...
• Visit www.sparklingwaters.co.za to find out more.

This feature originally appeared in Getaway Magazine.