An adventurous holiday set Jane de Hond on the path to running a guesthouse in one of South Africa’s most remote corners. Words Johanna Castro.
Jane de Hond and her partner Mark Thorn first fell in love with Africa whilst on holiday, and in 2007 they took the plunge and opened Fountain Place Guest House in a small South African village called McGregor, on a road to nowhere in the Cape.
“I originally came to South Africa in 2000. In fact, I’d never thought about coming to Africa before, but when my friend mentioned a holiday adventure a little voice inside my head asked, ‘why not?’ I decided on a whim to just go for it and see what new experiences might be waiting. Quite scary for someone who had, until then, lived life pretty uneventfully in the West Country.”
For many years Jane had worked in the financial and investment industry in the UK, but, deciding she’d had enough of office work, trained instead as a TEFL teacher. This turned out to be a serendipitous move because a few years later she became a partner in a language school called Accelerated Language Learning in Stellenbosch, near Cape Town. The need was there, the school grew, and the number of languages on offer multiplied. “Our total range in the end was 8 subjects; French, German, Spanish, Italian, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Business English and English Pronunciation,” says Jane.
Jane had by then fallen in love with the outdoor and more relaxed way of life in South Africa, as well as the dramatic landscapes. “I also realised that South Africa is a country with huge potential and my new way of life running a guest house affords me lots of opportunities to meet different and interesting people, which I love. The downside is probably the waiting around ... for guests to arrive, get settled in, and then waiting for them to appear in the morning for breakfast!”
Mark, who hails from Basildon, Essex, had similar reasons for settling in Africa: “The weather, the open spaces and the culture. After many years working as a Quantity Surveyor in the building industry, my itchy feet and spirit of adventure got the better of me. I came to South Africa for a year and ended up working for Concor Construction in Secunda. After that I started up a painting and decorating business in the Cape. Then I met Jane and the rest is history.”
Apart from spending time with Jane, Mark enjoys whale watching, tending his would-be bonsai trees, and having braais (barbecues). “It’s all a far cry from spending hours on end, mostly on auto-pilot, cruising the M25 during the course of my of work in the UK,” Mark adds.
Read the full article in our February 2009 edition.
