Bivane Wetland Reserve is a leisure destination
for special interest enthusiasts - but also the whole family. The gentle - yet
focused - art of fly-fishing is the main activity. Horse riding, rambling, 4X4
driving, hiking, mountain bicycling, and birding are the other options. Back on
the farmhouse porch, you can simply take in the view of big sky country, savouring
the deep rural silence and counting sheep…
The Pivaansrust yard property (a portion
of the original farm Klipplaatdrift) was purchased in 1991 by the Alberts family
as summer grazing for their Merino sheep. In 1999, the farm Pivaanspoort was acquired
from Mr Ronald Klingenberg and incorporated into the reserve.
The Klipplaatdrift property was purchased
solely for its agricultural value, but after having restored the old farmhouse
for the family's use, the Alberts' realised the farmyard's unique charm and that
it could easily become the centrepiece of a family-oriented tourist destination.
After spending their honeymoon there in
the winter of 1997, Jan and Lize Alberts set about transforming the Klipplaatdrift
opstal into a fly-fishing venue called "Pivaansrust" (after the Afrikaans
pronunciation of the Zulu name for a nearby river, called the Bivane – presumably
after the Waterbuck known as a “Biva”, in Zulu, a species which used
to be prolific along the lower reaches of the river) - and in the summer of 1997
the first tourist guests visited Pivaansrust.
After the purchase of the Pivaanspoort property
three years later, the homestead was likewise transformed into tourist accommodation.
Today, the two farmlands jointly make up the Bivane Wetland Reserve. The Alberts
family's deeply rooted conservation sentiment is evinced by their creation of
a wetland reserve on former merino sheep land and pursuit of a sustainable tourism
dream compatible with the farms' new status. Pivaanswaterval, the most spectacular
of the waterfalls in the Bivane River and the reserve, is soon to be declared
a Natural Heritage Site.
