Estate Living Magazine The Slow Movement - Issue 39 March 2019 | Page 66

G O O D
L I F E
Slow art in Slow Town
It was soon after the town decided to embrace slowness that they
adopted the tortoise as their emblem/mascot/logo – and mosaicked
tortoises started springing up everywhere. This was largely as a
result of a concerted effort by a local NPO called Masithandane.
After teaching a number of previously unemployed people how
to do mosaic, they started the Mosaic Art Tourism Project that has
culminated in the Mosaic Art Route, which – of course – should be
explored slowly. As well as three huge tortoises (Slow, Citta and
Skillie) to celebrate the town’s slowness, there are other mosaic
works – large and small. A five-metre-high giant mosaicked heart
in the ‘heart’ of town signifies the slow and steady heartbeat of
this mellow coastal village. There’s also an octopus’s garden, a
40-square-metre mosaic children’s wall, a war memorial, and – I
think, the funkiest of the lot – the mosaic horses. Anyone who has
driven through Sedgefield any time in the last half a dozen decades
will remember the uber-kitsch, but noticeable, wall of prancing
horses near the eastern edge of town. They were initially boringly
black and brown (sort of horse-coloured) but now they are a vibrant
rainbow of mosaic. And the Mosaic Village is a great spot to buy (or
commission) a wonderful mosaic art piece. On Saturdays, there is an
open-air market there.
Slow adventure in Slow Town
There are some places where you can do whitewater rafting,
skydiving, downhill skiing and even volcano luge – all fast-paced,
high-adrenaline adventures. But Sedgefield specialises in slower,
mindful – even meditative – adventures. Sedgefield has one of the
best paragliding launch sites ever. Kleinkrantz is a gentle dune of
about 50 metres high, but – when conditions are right – you can fly
from there for about 10 kilometres along the beach, riding the ridge
lift from the dunes and watching whales and dolphins in the sea.
But for a really slow, mindful adventure, nothing beats the Garden
Route Trail, starting in Wilderness and heading through Sedgefield.
This is a great way to walk and paddle through some of the Garden
Route’s best beaches, forests, wetlands and wide-open spaces, and
it’s also an opportunity to learn about the various ecosystems you
traverse, watch birds, identify plants and find interesting beasties in
tidal pools.
And then there’s fishing – and it doesn’t get slower or more
contemplative than that.
discover-sedgefield-south-africa.com | visitknysna.co.za/Sedgefield | gardenroutetrail.co.za
Jennifer Stern