This is a lovely hotel, consisting of an old farmhouse and outbuildings. The accomodation is spotlessly clean and the grounds beautiful. The pool area is lovely and very peaceful. My only critism would be the food. It was very poor - the chef even produced a jar of cook in sauce to see if I would like that! There are no other restaurants nearyby unless you want to drive. It is outside Oudsthourn on the same road as the Cango caves, ostritch farm and wildlife park.So although food wasn't great the location was excellent.

Lovely facilities and scenery but very limited service.

We arrived at De Opstal after a 4 hour drive just in time for dinner. Unfortunately we were told on arrival that the restaurant was closed that night and that no other arrangements had been made. The hotel is several miles out of town and I had to drive back to town for dinner. I felt rather like the Californian in Fawlty Towers. After a long drive I wanted to freshen up and have dinner, but that wasn't possible.

A helpful guy met us on arrival and took us and our bags to the room. The room was well furnished, cool and quiet. The bathroom was superbly equipped and furnished with lots of good toiletries.

Breakfast in the morning was OK. Several staff were present but only one appeared to do anything. On our departure the only interest shown was by one member of staff whose only concern was getting our accommodation voucher.

It was difficult to seek a remedy for any of the complaints as reception was unmanned for pretty much all of our time there.

The gardens and swimming pool are fantastic and the setting is great. Just a shame about the service.

De Opstal is like an oasis on the R328 from Oudtshoorn towards the Cango Caves.
It is a delightful place to stay and is just like the images on their website. The rooms are all in small cottage like buildings, dotted around the spectacular gardens, all with their own outdoor seating area, fridge, tea and coffee making facilities and are well equipped with decent hairdryers, TV’s etc.. Our room was generously proportioned with a large leather settee, coffee table and plenty of wardrobe / cupboard space. Bathrooms are large and the showers powerful. There was air-conditioning in each room and fireplaces for the winter too.
Paths were lit buy candles at night and there was a spring of lavender put on your pillow too. The owners were friendly and staff seemed happy too, even washing your car every morning.
The breakfast buffet was good, but evening buffet was slightly limited – 6 of the 7 main courses were ostrich! Well there are ostriches on site which is part of the charm. Having said that we mentioned that I am vegetarian and they were more than happy to make me a special meal. Children were also very welcome.
This is the sort of place where sitting by the pool, looking at the beautiful gardens you can truly relax, but if you like being on the go there’s plenty to choose from in close proximity. We would return if we ever have the chance.

We have just returned from a glorious two and a half week trip to South Africa. I hasten to add that we booked most of our hotels online following reviews that we had read on Tripadvisor. We feel for once that we really ought to contribute to this valuable website as we have found it so useful, not just for this holiday but for several others previously.

We flew to Cape Town, then went on through the wine districts, Route 62, the Garden Route on to the Eastern Game Reserves, then back to Cape Town. In summary, we stayed at the following hotels:

Lagoon Beach, Milnerton, Cape Town (3 nights)
The Village @ Spier, Stellenbosch (2 nights)
De Opstal, near Oudtshoorn (1 night)
Whalesong Coastal Lodge, Plettenberg Bay (3 nights)
Sandals, St Francis Bay (1 night)
Shamwari Game Reserve, Patterson (2 nights)
Mount Nelson, Cape Town (3 nights)

De Opstal, near Oudtshoorn

This is renovated 19th century farm rather than a true hotel and I have to admit that this was the only accommodation that we had any reservations about in advance as we thought that it might be too rustic for us as we like our creature comforts. As it turned out, this place was just charming. . We booked through a South African website called Portfolio Collection which specialises in accommodation of this nature.

We were greeted warmly by the owner and shown to our room which was lovely in a truly different sort of way. Each room is in a renovated farm building containing either two or three rooms. Ours was paired with one other and looked like a lovely whitewashed cottage complete with stable door and a verandah. Inside everything had been chosen with the utmost care, all in perfect condition but antique in nature. The bed had a wrought iron frame but was obviously new and comfortable. There were lots of rustic ornaments (old dolls pram, milk churn, old stove, oil can etc), typical of the original period and which added charm.

The bathroom had all mod cons however but it did fit well with the rustic nature of the room. The shower was fantastic, not a cubicle, more like a mini wet room. There was also a corner bath. Little finishing touches made all the difference, for example, rose petals in the bath salts and sprigs of lavender everywhere, even in the milk churn on the patio.

We sat and had a glass of wine on our little wrought iron bench on the verandah and looked out over the beautiful gardens (which include a fish pond and fountain and a small swimming pool). These again had strategically placed old farm implements which added to the character of the place and reminded you that it had once been a farm. You could see lots of ostriches grazing in the adjoining fields.

We arrived on a bank holiday, which was Election Day and most of the staff had been given the day off for voting. Consequently the restaurant was closed for evening meals. The owner had thoughtfully booked us into a local restaurant, Jemima’s which we had wanted to try anyway as this is rated as one of the best in South Africa. We were not disappointed!

Breakfast was served in the restaurant which had been closed the previous evening. This again was a lovely room and the owner’s touches did not go unnoticed. We found De Opstal to be so more than we had expected with many more personal touches than one finds in a big hotel. We would not hesitate to go back. We had debated about staying in one of the two main hotels in Oudtshoorn (both of which are extensively used by tour groups) but having seen both we know that we made the right decision.