By Jan De Beer
I am not proud to admit that - after 36 years of marriage - sharing a romantic, candlelit bath with my wife is not my usual Saturday afternoon pastime. Certainly not when the Bulls are playing the Crusaders at Loftus.
Yet there we were - toe to toe - in a bath made for two in a strange, dark room. White rose petals floated on the water, soft dreamy music filled the air, gentle jets of water caressed our skins. And my feet were decidedly bewildered to touch other feet at bath time.
"Stop fiddling and relax," my ecstatic bath partner hissed as my fingers - equally bewildered, I suppose - nervously tried to twiddle the silver controls of the bath taps. "That's what you came for, isn't it?"
Relaxation, coupled with almost more pampering than any one body can take, is what awaits the visitor at the new Fordoun Spa and Boutique Hotel on the outskirts of Nottingham Road in the KZN Midlands.
We were the guests of Jon Bates, dairy farmer turned spa owner, for a weekend of memorable luxury at Fordoun. In 1989, Jon was planning a new advertising campaign at his Auckland Park-based agency when the phone rang. That call changed his life.
His aunt, Lady Nora Usher, owner of a large dairy-and-beef farm in the Midlands, had left him the farm in her will. After recovering from the shock, Jon and his wife, Micheline, decided to leave the city lights of Johannesburg behind them and give dairy farming a go.
They not only adapted: soon, Fordoun cows were winning blue ribbons at the respected Pietermaritzburg Royal Agricultural Show. Through it all, though, he had a dream - to establish a world-class health spa in the Midlands.
"I eventually had the courage to take the plunge, sold the dairy section of the farm and, from some of the proceeds, invested R13-million in this dream project," Jon recalled as he walked us to the spa section of the sprawling complex where a smiling young Matthew Fowle and Melanie Paul explained what was on our treatment menu.
Matthew and Melanie are what Fordoun calls "aestheticians": two of eight full-time spa staff trained to dispense aesthetics and contentment to visitors. First on our menu was a rasul.
For Fordoun's version of this special Turkish steam-and-mud bath, you are given a bowl of powdered Zulu clay to apply all over your body - and then you sit in a steaming hot cubicle where it all melts away again. Then cool showers fall from the ceiling to leave your body with the best sell-by date it's had for years.
"The clay is special. It's been specified by Fordoun director Dr Elliott Ndlovu, a Zulu traditional healer. He's formulated an entire range of herbal products for Fordoun," Matthew enthused.
"Ritually, the clay has to be collected only on full Moon nights by virgins and old ladies. It's in very short supply." (The clay or the virgins: I had to ask.)
The rejuvenating hydrotherapy bath was followed by a hot stone massage, for which we had to don quaint disposable thongs before experiencing such exquisite relaxation that I almost ended up in dreamland by the time my young masseuse, Susan Wayne, had finished with me.
While my wife and I lay on massage beds, Matthew and Susan applied hot stones on towels covering various chakra parts of our bodies before grasping more stones to massage our skin.
It was uncanny how silently the couple moved. I was not even aware of Matthew's presence at the adjacent bed a metre away and only when I spotted Susan's feet through the head-hole, while face down, could I sense where her next massage stroke might start.
On my back - with a towel covering my eyes - her soothing touch always came as a surprise. And it was impossible to tell when she was using her bare hand, or clasping one of those smooth-edged stones in it.
Incidentally, if you have never visited a health spa and are a bit concerned about preserving your dignity, be assured: trained masseurs such as Matthew and Susan have the skills of fan dancers in knowing how to manipulate the towels covering your body to avoid mutual embarrassment. And there are always those G-strings to keep everything tucked in place, so to speak.
Fordoun Spa's many features include the blue mosaic, four-seater Rasul room; a saline flotation pool (converted from the farm's old grain silo and now sporting a fibre-optical starry ceiling); a large heated swimming pool with strategically placed massage jets; a gymnasium; sauna; steam room; Vichy shower; meditation room; juice room (with a variety of exotic, labelled health juices); and Pilates room; to name just a few of the amenities.
Visitors experienced in treatment at some of the world's top spa resorts have rated Fordoun's state-of-the-art equipment as up there with the best. The spa also has an in-house nutritionist, Lizel Ferreira, and personal trainer, Joe Klapprott, all reporting to the tall and elegant spa manager, Trish Holdengarde, who personally administers reiki healing.
And the "holistic reverence" imparted by herbalist and ethno-botanist Dr Ndlovu (a sangoma spiritual - and iNyanga traditional - healer who wowed the media at the Chelsea Flower Show) has led to the formulation of a wide range of soaps, gels, protective clays, oils, bath salts, lotions, creams and sprays all based on the theme of the seven chakras and seven colours of the rainbow.
Fondue's Skye Restaurant has been named after Jon and Micheline's granddaughter and the famous Scottish isle immortalised in song. This gourmet restaurant is run by former Johannesburg chef Pino Canderle of La Lampara, Norwood - and Skye's duck, for a start, is in a class by itself, I can tell you.
The hotel comprises 17 luxurious double suites with private verandah and under-floor heating that spreads under the bathroom tiles as well. Some of the suites even contain DVD players.
There is the Bird Room in which we stayed (easily 60sq m, without counting in the bathroom and dressing area, I would say); the Romance Room (with framed B&W pictures of the Bates's wedding day); the Fishing Room (located where tractors were once parked in the implement shed); and the intriguing Nkabinde Room - which has a story all its own.
The late William Nkabinde was chauffeur to Lady Usher's husband, Sir George - and a remarkable Zulu driver he was. "Sir George, who founded Aberdare Cables in South Africa, constantly battled with the government of the day to grant William a passport so that he could drive him in the UK and on the Continent on business trips," recounted Jon as we looked at the Nkabinde memorial now adorning the walls.
"William not only adapted to driving the Rolls-Royce on the wrong side of the road overseas but managed to pick up four foreign languages on these trips with his employer. He could eventually speak seven languages."
Panorama's Palace is a special corner suite converted from the Very-Important-Bull pen built for Panorama, a prize bull acquired by the Ushers in the 1950s from Sir Ernest Oppenheimer at the Rand Easter Show. With an impressive study of a bull now hanging above the headboard, Panorama would have been proud of his old abode.
Fordoun has corporate conference facilities for 40; a well-stocked trout dam; wedding-venue facilities (imagine the bride and bridesmaids being spoiled in the spa before walking down the aisle); and has future plans for a major golf estate.
Dr Ndlovu will also soon have his own consulting room - a traditional thatched hut leading on to his herbal garden near the spa. Shocking sangoma revelations, Zulu or peppermint-twist body wraps, Indian head massages, milk baths such as Cleopatra had in days of yore: they are just a small part of the shameless self-indulgence on the menu at Fordoun. But be aware: when you get home, you will hate Gauteng with a passion for weeks.
If you go ...
Rates: Special opening bed-and-breakfast rates (until end of September) at Fordoun Spa and Boutique Hotel:
Accommodation: Deluxe Crane Suites: R730 per person, sharing; luxury Starling Suites: R630 per person, sharing; standard Barn Owl Suites: R530 per person, sharing. These rates include free use of the heated pool and jets, flotation tank, sauna, steam room and gym.
Treatments: Spa treatments vary in price and are too numerous to mention here. Sports massages, for example, cost R250; hot stone massages, R300; Cleopatra's secret honey-and-organic-milk bath, R400; Queen of Sheba facial, R300; and a bridal bouquet, including five hours' treatment and lunch, R1 450. Various day packages incorporating treatment and meals are also there for the asking.
Info: Call Fordoun on 033-266-6217 or send an e-mail to [email protected] hotel's website is www.fordoun.com
- This article was originally published on page 6 of The Star on April 23, 2005