It must’ve been one of our last trips back to South Africa while we were still living in Mallorca—maybe the last trip. On previous visits, my mom and Niels would often go off to Magoebaskloof for the weekend to visit friends and do some trout fishing, leaving me behind. It drove me mad. Every time they came back with stories about the mountains and the fish, I felt like I’d missed something important.
But this time was different.
Maybe it was because my mom had seen how obsessed I was with fishing during that magical trip to Port Alfred with Arthur and Frances Rouse. Whatever the reason, she decided to take me along.
We didn’t go to Magoebaskloof, though. We went east—about 250 kilometers out of Johannesburg—into the highlands of what was then called the Eastern Transvaal. It’s Mpumalanga now, but back then, it felt like a different world entirely.
The village was called Dullstroom.
Tiny, remote, and full of history. Just a handful of houses, the old Dullstroom Inn, and a railway line that may or may not have still run through town en route to Mozambique. The place was wrapped in mist and mythology—Boer War graves still tucked into the hillsides, looked after by the War Commission like solemn footnotes from another century.
Niels had a friend who was part of the Anglo-American Fishing Syndicate. They had access to a private lake and a stretch of river right in the center of Dullstroom, complete with a crooked old cottage that looked like it hadn’t changed since the Boer War.
That weekend would end up being a turning point in my life.
I was introduced to fly fishing for the first time. Not just the act of casting—but the art of it. Niels brought his old fly-tying kit, a wooden box made by Veniard & Co., filled with the most exotic-looking materials I’d ever seen: iridescent peacock herl, feathers from golden pheasants, bits of mallard wing, fur, threads, silk. He sat with me and showed me how to tie a fly.
I was absolutely mesmerized. Hooked, you could say.
That evening, a flying ant hatch broke out over the lake. The trout went absolutely ballistic—rising in a frenzy, slashing the surface every few seconds. Every cast brought a strike. I hooked fish after fish… and lost every single one.
I was gutted.
The problem, we discovered later, was my knot. Arthur had taught me the single clinch knot—perfectly fine for 20lb surfcasting line—but absolutely useless for delicate 3 or 4lb fly tippet. It would just slip. Snap. Every time. Eventually, Niels showed me the double clinch knot, and that made all the difference.
That weekend, I landed my first trout on fly.
On Sunday, we drove further east to Lydenburg, about 50 kilometers from Dullstroom, on what was then a dirt road. Niels’s friend—Charles Fiddia-Green—had recently bought a farm there called Three Falls. Charles was older, something of a mentor to Niels, and hadn’t even formed the fishing syndicate yet. We were there at the very beginning.
We fished, caught a couple of beautiful trout, and I remember feeling like I’d stumbled into something sacred.
The only truly terrifying part was the drive back from Lydenburg. Niels, bless him, was doing about 120 km/h on that bumpy dirt road in his old Volkswagen Kombi. I was convinced we were going to launch off the edge of a cliff and die somewhere in the lowveld, our bodies to be discovered by a shepherd weeks later.
But we made it. And that was my first real taste of trout fishing.
Dullstroom would end up becoming a much bigger chapter in my life than I could’ve possibly imagined that weekend. Years later, I’d return there as an adult and build something I thought would last. But the place had a way of luring you in with beauty and gutting you when you least expected it. The full story’s coming—but let’s just say my heart didn’t leave Dullstroom in one piece.