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News > ODs Around the World > Lekker ODs at Lekkerwater

Lekker ODs at Lekkerwater

Lionel Goetz (1958G - left) and Alan Ramsay (1960F - right) met up with James van Niekerk (2015W) at the Lekkerwater Beach Lodge in De Hoop recently

Lionel Goetz (1958S - left) and Alan Ramsay (1960F - right) met up with James van Niekerk (2015W) at the Lekkerwater Beach Lodge in De Hoop recently, where James was completing a job as camp hand, before moving to Mpumalanga to start game guiding. After finishing his journalism and history degree at Rhodes, James trained as a chef at Est Est Alea in Randburg, Gauteng. Lionel and his wife Cathy had recently arrived back in South Africa to stay at their Llandudno home after being locked down in their Westhampton Beach home outside New York City.

Lekkerwater was originally the home of Bill Green, who bought the farm in 1939. The home was upgraded over the years until the farm was expropriated in the mid 1980s to create the Overberg missile testing range and ultimately the extended De Hoop nature reserve. During this time Lekkerwater became the retreat for FW de Klerk while he was state president during those interesting and often turbulent transition years from 1990 to 1994. After 1994, FW relinquished his rights and the facility was ceded back to Cape Nature who rented it out to visitors until September 2015 when a lightning-induced veld fire burned this part of the reserve including the lodge. Construction of the new lodge by the safari company Natural Selection started in April 2018 and was completed a year later - it now offers five star accommodation in six double cabins with a variety of activities including guided walks through the fynbos  and along the beaches.

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