The Oyster Box

The Oyster Box in Umhlanga Rocks is my kind of hotel.

It is a grand palace with an old world ambiance. It has the best spa in all of South Africa. It is private and exclusive.



















There is an infinity pool which overlooks the surf crashing on the rocks and the Indian Ocean...

 

and here is the best part, ..... it also looks out on the Umhlanga Rocks lighthouse!















Unfortunately we didn't stay there. A room starts at $800 a night and quite frankly I have better things to spend Vince's hard-earned money on than a hotel room. Like another Zulu shield for example!








And besides we would be spending very little of our time actually in our hotel. So we opted for the much more reasonably priced and almost as grand guest house (more like a guest villa), the Valdior. Our second floor suite had a living room, a bedroom, a kitchenette, a humongous bathroom, and a patio balcony with a great view of the Indian Ocean and the exact same sunrise as the Oyster Box. The only thing missing was the lighthouse!

And we could still have Drunken Oysters and a sundowner ... or two ... at the Oyster Box and ...










... a visit to the lighthouse through their private gate.

The bar reminded me very much of the long bar at Raffles in Singapore with the rattan electric ceiling fans everywhere overhead. A reminder of the tropical weather in Durbs and the surrounding beach communities. And that wasn't the only thing that recalled Raffles.

The Oyster Box had a sense of humour about the pronunciation of Umhlanga. You see, there is no "s" in Umhlanga, yet it is pronounced "oom-shlonga." I had a variation of a Singapore Sling, the drink made famous by Somerset Maugham at Raffles. It was called an Umhlanga "Shling."



Oh yeah, there was one other thing the Oyster Box had that the Valdior did not. A Dolphin Bell so that we could be alerted by the staff when to get up from our lounge chairs, turn over and watch the dolphins as they swim by.

That's worth a couple of hundred right there.