Mount Grace Bloggers Weekend

April 22, 2012 by • Magaliesburg, Travel • Tags: • 5 Comments

I had such a divine weekend. I was invited to the 5 star Mount Grace Country House and Spa in the Magaliesburg for a Bloggers weekend.
Before I even start telling you what I got up to, I have to tell you a bit about Mount Grace.
It’s situated an hour away from JHB in the Magaliesburg.  Once you’re off the main road, you need to drive about another km through a narrow, bendy and tree lined road- like something out of a fairytale. You really feel like you’re far away from reality. Once you get to the actual lodge, the setting is just surreal. Think rocky waterfalls, beautiful gardens, pristine bushveld and the most amazing staff ready to help with your every request.




Husband was studying so I was planning to go by myself and have a friend join me for dinner and to spend the night on Saturday. I wasn’t really sure what to expect- it’s a tad intimidating to go on a weekend away by yourself with people you don’t really know.
It ended up being such a blast, everyone was so friendly and I got to meet 3 of the bloggers I follow religiously- Anjana from The Jade Lotus, Bailey from Vanilla Blonde and Alida from Simply Delicious. I also got to meet a couple of bloggers that I will now start following, like Sam from Life and everything in between.

Anjana, Alida, Bailey, me and Sam ready to get pampered!

After a group lunch, we all headed off to the spa where we were treated to Swedish Full Body Massages.

Derek and Shahil loving the Hugh Hefner look 🙂

I could write an entire blog post just about the spa, but I will try to condense it. After changing, I was taken to a chalet in the middle of the garden where I got ready to have my massage. It was so heavenly, I was ready to fall asleep by the end of it!

One of the spa pools

Pretty nail polish

The spa has an extensive menu of specialised face and body treatments and a host of extra facilities for guests’ exclusive use, including a café, numerous pools, a hydrotherapy garden and an Afro Zen flotation tank.

They’ve also just launched a couple of new spa treatments, including a pimped out version of my favourite treatment ever, the hot stone massage. Their offering involves you lying on a BED of specifically placed, heated stones during the massage – the precise spinal placement of the stones offers deep relief for stressed muscles, releasing tension and significantly improving blood flow. Definitely something I’d like to try soon 🙂


After that it was off to our rooms to check in. It’s quite funny- because the property is so big and hilly, you’re transported everywhere by means of a golf cart. I’m sure it’s quite possible to walk, but as you can imagine, after that massage none of us were in the mood for that! The golf cart ride is an adventure all on its own- those hills are STEEP.


The room literally took my breath away- WOW. It was MASSIVE. I had my own kitchenette, lounge, dressing room area, his and hers basins and… wait for it… PRIVATE HEATED plunge pool. That was just the cherry on top. I immediately phoned my husband and made him feel extremely remorseful for electing not to come 😛



So romantic- this isolated heated pool, reserved for your use only

 My coffee table flowers
I spent the afternoon studying CFA (I know, there is something wrong with me), and just before sunset my friend, Pratika arrived. We got ready and headed to meet everyone for pre-dinner drinks.

My +1 for the night, Pratika

The fabulous bloggers


Mount Grace has 2 options for dinner, Twist Restaurant- which is buffet, and Rambling Vine which is a la carte.


Rambling Vine- loving the chairs… perfect for a 3 hour long dinner 🙂


We were spoilt with a gourmet 8 course meal at Rambling Vine paired with beers from the Dog and Fig Brewery. To be completely honest, when I read that I’d be drinking beers I wasn’t too excited. I’m a typical girl, I don’t go near beer!

After the first course was served with its paired beer, I had a sip and I actually liked it! It tasted like a sparkling dessert wine. Every other beer was surprisingly tasty and complimented the food well. Needless to say, I polished off every glass and was very “happy” by the  end of the night, especially ‘cos I’ve been off alcohol for so long because of my healthy eating plan.
Here are some pictures of the deliciousness we enjoyed. For once I wasn’t the only crazy person in the restaurant taking pictures of my food. Haha, the joys of being among fellow bloggers! 🙂

Carbs- how I love thee

 Sweetcorn fritter with Madagascan Vanilla Pod Ice Cream

 This was so cool- those brown things are mushrooms, and you are meant to inject the contents of the syringe into your bowl, pour a broth over it, and your own noodles will form.

Seafood stew with Scottish Salmon, Prawn and Crab

You know you’re somewhere tres fancy when you get a sorbet to cleanse the palate. This one was apple and uber yummy!

Giant Grilled Scallop with Foie Gras (which I wasn’t brave enough to eat) and Raspberry Coulis

Okay, have you EVER seen a more spectacular looking dessert? It’s a 3 layered Caramel Bavarois (no idea what that means) with Raspberries and Honeycomb. Everything on the plate was edible (and delicious!). The quill looking thing is actually chocolate!

Mount Grace is actually starting a series of gourmet wine pairing dinners/ lunches where they are inviting a different winemaker over from the Cape over each month. It costs R450 for dinner (including all your wines) and you’ll get treated to food as divine as what we experienced above. Driving back to JHB after all that wine probably isn’t the best idea, so you can also stay the night and join the winemaker for lunch the next day.
Once dinner ended, it was going 11pm and we had been there from 6:30pm! Pratika and I were both exhausted so we golf-carted back to the room.

As soon as we woke up on Sunday we decided to try out the plunge pool. We were a bit sceptical about it being too cold- we all know how crisp the JHB morning air is these days! The pool was just bliss, warm and bubbly- all I needed was a glass of the aforementioned!

I know this looks like I’m not wearing anything- promise I am, lol 🙂

After that we were starving, and I heard some rumours of there being waffles- (1 of) my weaknesses, so off to breakfast we went.

Not surprisingly, breakfast was a huge spread with every possible thing you could think of eating, including the crispiest yummiest waffles ever!



 Happy me, supposedly on a diet 🙂

And that was the end of an amazing weekend! Search #mountgraceblog on Twitter if you’d like to see what the others got up to.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to Manley Communications for inviting me. If you’d like to book your own luxury weekend getaway, call the Mount Grace Country House & Spa direct on 014 577 5600, email reservations@mountgrace.co.za or go to www.mountgrace.co.za for more information.

I can assure you that it will be everything you expect and more!

Hope you all have a great week- mine is going to be quite hectic with work so apologies in advance if I am quiet.

xx
H

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