Our holiday to The Baths

During the December and January holidays while everyone was gallivanting about dieing the summer holiday, I was the poor soul who was working through because our intern’s contract had ended, I didn’t have any family obligations or a kid who gets school holidays and someone had to make sure Parent24 didn’t burn to the ground. So I took 2 weeks off between my birthday and our wedding anniversary.

We went away to a place in Citrusdal called The Baths. I’ve been twice before, once when I was a child and the second time was when The Husband and I went on our honeymoon almost 6 years ago.

We left after The Munchkin had his nap so he was in a good mood in the car despite 2 hour drive in the heat.

So we were very relieved to get to the place just after 2:30pm. We booked into Number 35 Olsen Building, which happened to be the Honeymoon Suite seeing as we were also celebrating our upcoming anniversary.

There were a few other reasons I chose the Honeymoon Suite aside it being the fanciest of the accommodations. I liked that the bed had curtains that went all the way around, this meant that I could put The Munchkin to sleep without the strange surroundings distracting him.

Unfortunately, I forgot I had a child who likes to throw himself about and he inevitably  knocked his head so hard on that very stupid headboard (who the hell thoughts stones would make a great headboard? Nice to look at, but doesn’t make that much sense in reality).

And then also this bathroom! I intended to use my Lush birthday present that The Husband had gotten me and just soak away!

The Munchkin was completely obsessed with the giant bath and also the mirror right opposite it. He kept climbing in and dancing with himself.

After getting settled in we had some lunch and then went off to the pool to cool off because Citrusdal decided that it would be 35 degrees that day!

The Cold Pool:

We immediately went to the cold pool even though The Baths calling card is it’s glorious hot water spring pool. Which we took a quick dip in before heading back to braai for supper.

The Hot Pool:

You guys! This pool! THIS POOL! Uuuurgh! So good. It was literally like a warm bath! Even The Munchkin couldn’t get enough of it.

This was one of those really great holidays where you’re in and out of the pool all day, meal times are simple things like braai and sandwiches and I actually almost finished an entire book!

The next day we went exploring for a bit, taking a look at the other buildings and also a walk up to the rock pools.

Up some stairs and a short slope brings you to some rock pools. Each one is fed from the natural spring and disappointingly the biggest one is actually the coldest. It’s not frigid but it’s not warm either. The middle one is the nicest, it was deep enough for The Munchkin to stand up in an had enough space for all three of us to lounge about in. It was also the warmest. Colder than the hot water pool but still that nice luke warm bath water temperature.

The cell phone reception there is shaky at best. The Husband sometimes got EDGE which was cool to check in with home and I didn’t get any signal at all. I even let my phone die and didn’t feel the need to constantly check it which was a nice respite from the daily hustle and bustle that is life.

We got up earlier than usual because once The Muchkin was awake we HAD to be also, otherwise he would have packed everything out and broken something – and lost our security deposit in the process. But I didn’t mind because it meant we had more hours of daylight to spend and I also went to sleep early-ish because I was so nicely tired from all the swimming and running around with The Munchkin. The kid was in heaven exploring all over the place, every chance he got.

The Hot Baths were right next door to us. There were 6 private jacuzzi rooms but we were disappointed that the one we wanted to get into, the bubbles didn’t work.

After we’d put The Munchkin to sleep at night (and he fell asleep fairly quickly!!) The Husband and I played our new board game, Shinobi Wat-aah! and also some good old Zombie Dice.

I love this game! The artwork is so beautiful, it’s one of my favourite things about it. It’s part card playing game, part board game and I’ll do a proper review on it soon.

All in all we had a great time. I’m all recharged and relaxed. It’s so important to have some down time and just reconnect with your people. Life gets so busy, especially with a toddler that you can easily just get dragged down by the slog of day-to-day.

The Baths is a great holiday even if you don’t stay in the fanciest of their accommodations. The other cottages have a rustic feel to it and they’re quite lovely. They also have camping sites if that’s more your flavour but I definitely prefer a bed! I just thank God we chose an apartment with AC because it was between 33 – 35 degrees everyday we were there.