Our adventure trail to Africa
Nature lovers Nigel and Paula Broderick are escaping Dartmoor for an Eastern Cape home off the beaten track
Imagine living in a five-bedroom farmhouse on Dartmoor, free to enjoy country pursuits and with regular breaks for foreign holidays and vintage car rallies. Sounds good. Nigel, 56, and Paula Broderick, 52, had that life for a couple of years, then realised they were bored. “We sold our marketing company and took early retirement, but the attraction of country walks and collecting vintage and classic cars waned after a time,” Nigel said. “We needed a project. Something to get our teeth into.” They chewed over what to do next and went on holiday to the Eastern Cape of South Africa, thinking that they might buy a vineyard. Instead the couple visited game reserves and learnt about a small endangered antelope called the oribi. Their project was born, and now the Brodericks are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds making a reserve for the shy, Bambi-like creatures, which stand 2ft high at the shoulder and are famed for their “stotting” — jumping into the air with all four legs held rigid.
They have bought a farm near Kenton-on-Sea in the Eastern Cape and have put their Dartmoor house near Bridford, complete with 42 acres of woodland, streams, a staff cottage and plentiful wildlife, on sale for £1.75 million. Work has started on their new home in Africa — a four-bedroom bush house built around a courtyard designed by François Theron, a South African architect. It is hoped that the house will be ready by the autumn. His characteristic designs use a mixture of modern and traditional materials such as aluminium, glass, thatch, wood and thick stone walls. The result is a luxurious combination of a sizeable African hut crossed with a planter’s house. The Broderick house, with its wraparound veranda overlooking a deep valley, will be instantly recognisable as his work. Theron believes that, when designing in the bush, there should be a close relationship between the building and the environment. The hallmarks of his buildings are courtyards, unvarnished timber decks that surround gnarled old trees, and wide glass doors that can be folded back into wall cavities to open the house to the elements.
The Brodericks are keeping the existing farm building in South Africa for their manager, and there are a couple of cottages for holiday lets. They have managed to buy ten oribi to use as breeding stock. Nigel said: “Earlier we were involved in a charity to save the painted hunting dog, so threatened animals are a cause close to our hearts. The oribi are declining because their habitat is under threat from farming. Grass used for domestic grazing is useless for them. They need natural terrain with the original type of grasses and access to water. We had a couple of experts out to look at the farm and they said it was perfect, because two thirds of it is virgin fauna.
“There are a few game reserves in the area, but ours will be a hobby, not a commercial venture. It’s a lovely area with a good climate, no malaria or humidity — and long empty roads with lions or rhinos causing the obstructions rather than traffic.” The 2,000-acre farm cost £500,000, but the new house and the fences to protect the oribi from predators will use up much of the proceeds from the sale of the Dartmoor house. The cost of living, however, is much lower in South Africa. Nigel said: “We are transferring money for the building work in batches. The rand is very volatile, and exchange rates alter minute by minute with big swings of 4 to 5 per cent at a time. We are using a currency broker because their exchange rates seemed to be the better than the bank. We could get a fixed-deal rate, but I have a hunch, and our financial adviser agrees, that we will get better rates in the near future. So far we have transferred the first £100,000.”
The Brodericks hope to move to the Cape in the summer to oversee the final stages of building work, taking their collie-cross dog and two cats. They hope to complete their South African menagerie with a giraffe and zebra and look forward to regular visits from their two adult sons.
by Jenny Knight of The Times
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