wellness in the wilderness
PEOPLE IN PARKS
WELLNESS IN THE Being in nature involves a good deal more than a travel experience. How about deepening your connection to the natural world? By Dianne Tipping-Woods
WILDERNESS
| DE HOOP NATURE RESERVE | Deepen your union with nature on a yoga retreat.
SCOTT RAMSAY
T
here is something undeniably appropriate about being in tree pose (vrksasana) amongst ancient milkwoods, or eagle pose (garudasana) while fish eagles call and a bright bokmakierie darts through the bushes nearby. “In yoga many poses relate to trees or animals and the root of the practice is about finding nature inside of yourself,” explains Iyengar yoga instructor Marianne Wiid from My Yoga Space. In Iyengar yoga, the focus is on sequencing and holding poses. Yesterday
62 WILD SUMMER 2017/2018
afternoon, on the beach at Koppie Alleen, you watched whales while standing on your head. As you practise your asanas today, there are thousands of waterbirds on the vlei and eland and bontebok all around the Opstal area. “We have such a beautiful rhythm at De Hoop, starting early and soaking up the serene environment. The reserve has that open space that opens up the mind and your whole being,” says Marianne. You smell the sea on the breeze, mixed with the aromatic scent of the fynbos. You savour the purity
Transformative travel has become a global trend. A deeper bond with wild places may change your life.
www.wildcard.co.za
SUMMER 2017/2018 WILD 63
PEOPLE IN PARKS
of your breath and the way your body feels in each pose. You can even enjoy yoga in nature without ‘doing’ yoga. Marianne says: “You can access some of the principles without being in the postures. If you can unite your mind and your breath and tap into something spiritual, it affects how you relate to
the world around you.” So is the landscape more beautiful because of your yoga practice? Or do you feel better because of the beauty of the landscape? “Depending on your connection to the environment, yoga in a natural space is easier. All you have to do, is tap into the energy of the place.”
De Hoop Nature Reserve lies 230 km from Cape Town.
THEGOODHOLIDAY.COM
MAKE IT HAPPEN Stay in De Hoop Nature Reserve’s cottages or book into the Opstal for dinner, bed and breakfast. Visit www.dehoopcollection.com for rates and bookings. Go to www.myyogaspace.co.za to find out more about yoga retreats in De Hoop.
Enjoy the benefits of a massage and bathing in the forest.
For many people who seek meaning and inspiration, Mother Nature offers benefits on a spiritual level.
T
here are very few environments where we can have all our senses stimulated so pleasantly. There is beauty for the eyes to see, amazing textures to experience, a perfumery of forest scents and layers of secret forest sounds.” Forest guide and massage therapist Meagan Vermaas, who has been guiding and offering forest massages since 2011, works with the incredible sensory environment of the forest to relax the body and mind. “There is a Japanese term, shinrin-yoku, which means forest bathing. It is a recognised relaxation and stress management activity in Japan,” she explains. It’s a beautiful feeling to lie in the embrace of the Knysna forest as the light filters through the canopy of
SHAEN ADEY / AFRIPICS.COM
PURE SOUL FOOD Destress on a yoga retreat in De Hoop Nature Reserve (top) or enjoy the soothing atmosphere of Knysna Forest (bottom).
| GARDEN ROUTE NATIONAL PARK | trees while strong hands massage away your tensions. As you relax, sounds are distorted, the air feels different and everything seems balanced, connected and alive, including you. “The forest naturally draws people into the present moment as they feel the bark and the leaves, catch the scent of wild gardenia or taste water from the forest streams,” notes Meagan. “It’s important to follow your instincts. If you want to stop and feel that bark or that leaf or just stop and take in that light streaming through the ferns, then do it. Finding a place to sit and listen and feel the forest around you is also important. I have seen guests from the big cities leave the forest looking and walking differently. It can change you, irrevocably.”
MAKE IT HAPPEN Stay at Diepwalle Forest camping decks in your own or a hired tent or unwind at the four-star Harkerville Forest Treetop Chalet. Book with SANParks Central Reservations 012-428-9111 www.sanparks.org. Forest Massage offers single or double massage appointments in the comfort of your holiday accommodation: www.forestguidedtours.co.za
www.wildcard.co.za
Garden Route National Park’s Knysna Forest lies 70 km from George.
SUMMER 2017/2018 WILD 65
PEOPLE IN PARKS
| KRUGER NATIONAL PARK | Honour the spirit of nature on a wilderness hike.
The Kruger National Park lies some 450 km from Gauteng.
O
n safari, we can become obsessed with moving from activity to activity or sighting to sighting. When we are no longer spectators, but participants, everything changes,” says Brenden Pienaar of Lowveld Trails, who has just finished guiding his 100th wilderness backpack trail in the Kruger National Park. “When you are constantly moving from one moment to the next, you lose the present and your ability to be in it. Because of their very nature though, multi-day wilderness backpack trails are one long moment,” he explains. “The big point that people sometimes miss with wildlife-oriented activities is the transformative role that nature can play if conditions are right.” Together with the pared-down simplicity of carrying all you need on your back, the trails help facilitate a connection to nature that shorter, more activity-driven experiences can’t
MAKE IT HAPPEN Book a backpack trail in the Kruger National Park through SANParks Central Reservations 012-428-9111, www.sanparks.org. 66 WILD SUMMER 2017/2018
UKHAHLAMBA-DRAKENSBERG WORLD HERITAGE SITE
achieve. It’s in the moments before dawn, at the threshold between light and dark, when you wake up as just another animal among many, and feel at home. Although the wildlife encounters on these trails can be spectacular, their transformative potential comes from what Brenden describes as “genius loci, or spirit of place and the qualities inherent to true wilderness”. These include silence, darkness, a pristine environment, solitude as an individual and isolation as a group. The trails affect everyone differently and not every experience is profound. “But people do have spontaneous moments of insight,” Brenden says, as they begin to tune into the sounds, sights, smells, colours and textures around them. “You can’t facilitate a spiritual or meditative experience, but you can honour the spirit of a place as you walk.” Often that’s all it takes.
The Drakensberg is a perfect setting for meditation.
Learn to meditate in the mountains.
Y
ou may well wonder if the place has become a part of you, or if you have become part of it. Mornings in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg can feel like a precious gift you have given yourself. “‘It feels like my life has just begun again’ is something I hear regularly at the end of our retreats in the Kamberg valley of the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg,” says Buddhist monk Kelsang Jampel. A student of meditation since 2006, Jampel says, “The experience is about learning to understand your life as a place of virtually limitless possibilities.” One of the main functions of Buddhist meditation is to turn our focus from being self-centred, to
SCOTT RAMSAY
Tackling a backpack trail in the Kruger National Park.
developing kindness and compassion towards all living beings. It’s no surprise then that practising meditation enhances feelings of love and appreciation for nature. Jampel adds that being in a place with lots of space, like the “beautiful, quiet, peaceful and perfect” Drakensberg, can be transformative, “because we can draw on the park’s stillness and sense of limitlessness to tap into our own potential for stillness and limitlessness. The only time we can be truly happy is when our mind is peaceful.” As you become more in tune with the world around you by making its qualities your own, “even the way you feel about yourself improves”.
Kamberg Nature Reserve in the Drakensberg lies 180 km from Durban.
/
MAKE IT HAPPEN To book a chalet at Kamberg Nature Reserve, visit www.kznwildlife.com Learn more about meditation retreats at www.meditateindurban.org. www.wildcard.co.za
SUMMER 2017/2018 WILD 67
WELLNESS IN THE Being in nature involves a good deal more than a travel experience. How about deepening your connection to the natural world? By Dianne Tipping-Woods
WILDERNESS
| DE HOOP NATURE RESERVE | Deepen your union with nature on a yoga retreat.
SCOTT RAMSAY
T
here is something undeniably appropriate about being in tree pose (vrksasana) amongst ancient milkwoods, or eagle pose (garudasana) while fish eagles call and a bright bokmakierie darts through the bushes nearby. “In yoga many poses relate to trees or animals and the root of the practice is about finding nature inside of yourself,” explains Iyengar yoga instructor Marianne Wiid from My Yoga Space. In Iyengar yoga, the focus is on sequencing and holding poses. Yesterday
62 WILD SUMMER 2017/2018
afternoon, on the beach at Koppie Alleen, you watched whales while standing on your head. As you practise your asanas today, there are thousands of waterbirds on the vlei and eland and bontebok all around the Opstal area. “We have such a beautiful rhythm at De Hoop, starting early and soaking up the serene environment. The reserve has that open space that opens up the mind and your whole being,” says Marianne. You smell the sea on the breeze, mixed with the aromatic scent of the fynbos. You savour the purity
Transformative travel has become a global trend. A deeper bond with wild places may change your life.
www.wildcard.co.za
SUMMER 2017/2018 WILD 63
PEOPLE IN PARKS
of your breath and the way your body feels in each pose. You can even enjoy yoga in nature without ‘doing’ yoga. Marianne says: “You can access some of the principles without being in the postures. If you can unite your mind and your breath and tap into something spiritual, it affects how you relate to
the world around you.” So is the landscape more beautiful because of your yoga practice? Or do you feel better because of the beauty of the landscape? “Depending on your connection to the environment, yoga in a natural space is easier. All you have to do, is tap into the energy of the place.”
De Hoop Nature Reserve lies 230 km from Cape Town.
THEGOODHOLIDAY.COM
MAKE IT HAPPEN Stay in De Hoop Nature Reserve’s cottages or book into the Opstal for dinner, bed and breakfast. Visit www.dehoopcollection.com for rates and bookings. Go to www.myyogaspace.co.za to find out more about yoga retreats in De Hoop.
Enjoy the benefits of a massage and bathing in the forest.
For many people who seek meaning and inspiration, Mother Nature offers benefits on a spiritual level.
T
here are very few environments where we can have all our senses stimulated so pleasantly. There is beauty for the eyes to see, amazing textures to experience, a perfumery of forest scents and layers of secret forest sounds.” Forest guide and massage therapist Meagan Vermaas, who has been guiding and offering forest massages since 2011, works with the incredible sensory environment of the forest to relax the body and mind. “There is a Japanese term, shinrin-yoku, which means forest bathing. It is a recognised relaxation and stress management activity in Japan,” she explains. It’s a beautiful feeling to lie in the embrace of the Knysna forest as the light filters through the canopy of
SHAEN ADEY / AFRIPICS.COM
PURE SOUL FOOD Destress on a yoga retreat in De Hoop Nature Reserve (top) or enjoy the soothing atmosphere of Knysna Forest (bottom).
| GARDEN ROUTE NATIONAL PARK | trees while strong hands massage away your tensions. As you relax, sounds are distorted, the air feels different and everything seems balanced, connected and alive, including you. “The forest naturally draws people into the present moment as they feel the bark and the leaves, catch the scent of wild gardenia or taste water from the forest streams,” notes Meagan. “It’s important to follow your instincts. If you want to stop and feel that bark or that leaf or just stop and take in that light streaming through the ferns, then do it. Finding a place to sit and listen and feel the forest around you is also important. I have seen guests from the big cities leave the forest looking and walking differently. It can change you, irrevocably.”
MAKE IT HAPPEN Stay at Diepwalle Forest camping decks in your own or a hired tent or unwind at the four-star Harkerville Forest Treetop Chalet. Book with SANParks Central Reservations 012-428-9111 www.sanparks.org. Forest Massage offers single or double massage appointments in the comfort of your holiday accommodation: www.forestguidedtours.co.za
www.wildcard.co.za
Garden Route National Park’s Knysna Forest lies 70 km from George.
SUMMER 2017/2018 WILD 65
PEOPLE IN PARKS
| KRUGER NATIONAL PARK | Honour the spirit of nature on a wilderness hike.
The Kruger National Park lies some 450 km from Gauteng.
O
n safari, we can become obsessed with moving from activity to activity or sighting to sighting. When we are no longer spectators, but participants, everything changes,” says Brenden Pienaar of Lowveld Trails, who has just finished guiding his 100th wilderness backpack trail in the Kruger National Park. “When you are constantly moving from one moment to the next, you lose the present and your ability to be in it. Because of their very nature though, multi-day wilderness backpack trails are one long moment,” he explains. “The big point that people sometimes miss with wildlife-oriented activities is the transformative role that nature can play if conditions are right.” Together with the pared-down simplicity of carrying all you need on your back, the trails help facilitate a connection to nature that shorter, more activity-driven experiences can’t
MAKE IT HAPPEN Book a backpack trail in the Kruger National Park through SANParks Central Reservations 012-428-9111, www.sanparks.org. 66 WILD SUMMER 2017/2018
UKHAHLAMBA-DRAKENSBERG WORLD HERITAGE SITE
achieve. It’s in the moments before dawn, at the threshold between light and dark, when you wake up as just another animal among many, and feel at home. Although the wildlife encounters on these trails can be spectacular, their transformative potential comes from what Brenden describes as “genius loci, or spirit of place and the qualities inherent to true wilderness”. These include silence, darkness, a pristine environment, solitude as an individual and isolation as a group. The trails affect everyone differently and not every experience is profound. “But people do have spontaneous moments of insight,” Brenden says, as they begin to tune into the sounds, sights, smells, colours and textures around them. “You can’t facilitate a spiritual or meditative experience, but you can honour the spirit of a place as you walk.” Often that’s all it takes.
The Drakensberg is a perfect setting for meditation.
Learn to meditate in the mountains.
Y
ou may well wonder if the place has become a part of you, or if you have become part of it. Mornings in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg can feel like a precious gift you have given yourself. “‘It feels like my life has just begun again’ is something I hear regularly at the end of our retreats in the Kamberg valley of the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg,” says Buddhist monk Kelsang Jampel. A student of meditation since 2006, Jampel says, “The experience is about learning to understand your life as a place of virtually limitless possibilities.” One of the main functions of Buddhist meditation is to turn our focus from being self-centred, to
SCOTT RAMSAY
Tackling a backpack trail in the Kruger National Park.
developing kindness and compassion towards all living beings. It’s no surprise then that practising meditation enhances feelings of love and appreciation for nature. Jampel adds that being in a place with lots of space, like the “beautiful, quiet, peaceful and perfect” Drakensberg, can be transformative, “because we can draw on the park’s stillness and sense of limitlessness to tap into our own potential for stillness and limitlessness. The only time we can be truly happy is when our mind is peaceful.” As you become more in tune with the world around you by making its qualities your own, “even the way you feel about yourself improves”.
Kamberg Nature Reserve in the Drakensberg lies 180 km from Durban.
/
MAKE IT HAPPEN To book a chalet at Kamberg Nature Reserve, visit www.kznwildlife.com Learn more about meditation retreats at www.meditateindurban.org. www.wildcard.co.za
SUMMER 2017/2018 WILD 67
