South Africa

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    Summer holidays

    This summer, we celebrated our anniversary at Mooiplaas Guesthouse in Oudtshoorn, enjoying the pool while visiting ostriches. We then camped in Sedgefield, relishing a family-friendly site with a lovely lake. After a night in Knysna, we returned to SANParks Ebb & Flow, enjoying community vibes, river swimming, and Redberry Farm.

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    2025 running recap

    In 2025, after five years of running inspired by parenting, I achieved personal bests in both 5k and 10k races, breaking previous records. My daughter, Mila, also participated in running. I ran over 1,000 kilometers this year, despite the expensive shoe budget. Even after a canceled marathon, I found new opportunities for future races.

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    Plettenberg & Hermanus

    During the South African winter, we took some time as a family to enjoy the beautiful coastal region known as the Garden Route. In July, the canola field are beautiful yellow, and the sun on the way made for a great road trip to Plettenberg. We went to the Wolf Sanctuary — the kids were

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    10 years at Automattic

    In May 2015, WooThemes announced that Automattic had acquired it. I had been working for Woo since October 2014 — so just under 8 months — and in July 2015 we officially started as Automatticians. That’s a decade ago this month. 🤯 Ownership The time has gone incredibly fast, and I cannot emphasise enough how

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    2024 Running goals

    In my 2023 running recap, I hinted at doing my first marathon. Our son had just been born, and I had no clue what was going to be possible, so I didn’t want to commit to anything just yet. My first marathon At the beginning of this year, I decided to enter the Sanlam Cape

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    2023 Running goals

    This November, it’s three years ago since I started running. I had done the occasional run before that, but three years ago, I was a new parent living in a fairly small apartment during a COVID-related lockdown. I worked from home, and with the lockdown, we rarely had time to ourselves at all. So, I

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    Plettenberg & Grabouw

    In September, we went for a week to Plettenberg Bay. We had a relaxed time, going to the beach several times. The food highlight was definitely Barrington’s, a local brewery with tasty meals. Our usual visit to Île de Païn in Knysna was also on the schedule. On the way back, we stopped in Grabouw

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    Getting started with Woo and Paystack

    Today, I presented at the Paystack bootcamp in Cape Town and gave an introduction to Woo. Since today is also the day of the rugby world cup finals, and both South Africa and New Zealand sell their fan gear with Woo, I went a bit overboard with rugby references. The scoring Both the Springboks and

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    Tulbagh & Riebeek-Kasteel

    When we go away for a weekend in Winter, we almost always find ourselves in the Tulbagh region: beautiful valleys and mountains, nice places to eat, nice places to stroll through. At the beginning of July, we visited the Fraaigelegen farm, a place we had gone to nine years ago with my brother and his

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    Summer holidays

    Just like last year, we had a mix between camping and staying in cottages during the last December/January holidays. We started with camping in Greyton at Twin Rivers. This camp site is completely off the grid, but has amazingly large sites. We loved staying there as the river is toddler-friendly and just a short walk

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    Simon’s Town

    Shortly after returning from Belgium, we went to the Simon’s Town holiday home of friends. Kim’s mom had been in Bali staying with her son who works remotely from there. To celebrate us being together again after five months, we spent some time together. For all of us coming from hot weather, the cold and

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    Wolseley

    Right before the 2020 Christmas break, South Africa had another strict lockdown. We had booked a place for New Year’s Eve in Wolseley, but only ended up getting there by early 2022. I’d highly recommend the Big Sky Cottages we stayed at for this trip. Next to going for a run in Ceres, we also

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    Road trip with my parents

    Last November, my parents finally were able to come down to South Africa to meet their granddaughter. My parents had never been to a proper game park, so we took them to Addo. Along the way, we spent time in Prince Albert, and Knysna. Here are some pics:

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    Knysna

    In August, we went for a long weekend away to Knysna. We stayed on Thesen Island, which is walking distance from the Knysna Waterfront and Île de Païn*, two places we want to go to regularly when staying in Knysna. Below are some pics of our trip. *I did not make a spelling mistake. Even

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    Montagu & Robertson

    At the beginning of this year, the COVID-19 restrictions in South Africa included not being able to access public beaches, rivers, and dams. We had planned a two-week road trip which included many beaches and rivers, so we decided to postpone it. Instead, we made a last-minute reservation to go to the smaller towns of

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    Linking your site to the South African Covid-19 page

    Add a link to the South African COVID-19 portal on your WordPress website.

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    Franschhoek

    The weekend after our birthday party, Kim and I went to Franschhoek. Pretty much all previous times we’ve gone there, we’ve done the wine tram and thats still very highly recommended. This time, however, we were spoilt by our family. Things to do We were able to stay at Basse Provence Country House (Rickety Bridge)

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    Hiking up Table Mountain

    Once a year my team at Automattic, called Sirius, meets in person. Last year we went to Mallorca, but this year my team the long travel down to Cape Town. One of our activities was to hike up Table Mountain. Route We took my favourite route up the mountain via Kasteelspoort. We walked to the

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    Franschhoek wine tram(s)

    South African wines are world-renowned and we happen to live in the region where the majority of the wine is made. By consequence of proximity – and probably just because we enjoy a glass of wine – one of the activities we like a lot is wine tasting; visiting the wine farms and getting an

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    Cape Agulhas

    Cape Point near Cape Town is often perceived as the Southernmost tip of Africa, but it’s actually the Southwesternmost tip. The real Southernmost tip of Africa is Cape Agulhas. In February, when Kim’s mom came to visit, we went there for a long weekend. It was very stormy and windy, but the rugged scenery made

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