Review: Troutwoods Cottage, Elandskloof (November 2022)

Mommy! It’s faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar!!

The cottage is about 240km from Pretoria, on the Schoemanskloof Road, direction Nelspruit. One thing that we feel we should mention, is that you need a car with high ground clearance. We arrived and left in pouring rain, and the road was very slippery, and quite rocky at a stage. We drove a Subaru Forester and had no issue reaching the cottage, but we fear that if we drove one of our sedans, we would have been forced to turn around. We are not sure if this is just because of the rain, maybe just check on this when you book 🙂

Zenia is an amazing host! The Cottage is on a working farm, so their house is also on the farm. But it’s situated far enough so that you don’t see them or hear them… and so that your doggies’ barking won’t bother them. Zenia also has her own doggies and was so considerate, she notified us each time that they went for a walk or some training on the farm, just to make sure that our doggies’ paths never crossed.

When we arrived it was cold and wet. Zenia made sure that there were more than enough towels and trows to cover the furniture. We never for one moment felt too scared to let the doggies into the rooms or onto the beds (we took our own duvets and covered the beds with that) – this Cottage was designed with the doggies in mind… it was an added bonus that the bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchen were also fantastic for the humans!

Now this is why we are so excited about the place:

1. The entire cottage is fenced off.  If you have an escape artist doggy that can jump fences, please double check the height of the fence with Zenia. Our doggies have not discovered that they can jump yet, and we felt they were 100% secured. You can chill in front of the fire place on a rainy day, or read a book (there is no TV), without having to worry about your fur-kids getting up to no good.
2. When you exit your cottage area, there is a gate that leads to ANOTHER FENCED OFF area. This area is plantation like, with a couple of chopped down trees and a couple of huge trees where the doggies can run around, forest style!
3. But wait, there’s more… When you exit that fenced area, you get to ANOTHER FENCED OFF AREA WITH A DAM! Wow! Pippa and Ruby had the time of their lives! They have never been to a dam, and despite the rain and icy temperatures, they were in and out of the dam like two toddlers that had too much sugar! They literally ran around the entire dam… until poor Ruby could literally not run anymore, and had to be carried back to the cottage. She is a healthy 16kg’s, so that was fun…

There are actually 3 dams on the property, but we chose to only go the fenced one, as we did not want to leash our doggies. If you arrange with Zenia, you’d be able to visit them all.

Yes, there are farm animals around, but they are all fenced off, so no need to worry about your doggy having a sheep for lunch… unless you open the gate of course.

Zenia also owns a business, Die Plaaskombuis. Her food is to die for! From home baked bread to malva pudding, chocolate brownies, pumpkin tart, even freshly baked liver treats for the doggies – we were truly spoiled! You can even book a picnic and go enjoy it next to the dam! Make sure to order in advance, talk to Zenia about the timelines when booking.

We took our own wifi router as we had to do some work. The cellphone reception ranged anywhere between 0 and 1 or 2 bars, but the wifi enabled us to manage quite well.

The two fur-kids were SO tired after the holiday, they slept all the way home… That was a first for us!