La Rochelle adaptive

 For me, a product of English stately homes, murder fiction and Harry Potter – mazes stretch the imagination.
Mazes are designed to be a strategic challenge; they are one of humankind’s original physical puzzle games. Unlike a labyrinth, which is designed to be contemplative but easy to complete, a maze is intentionally difficult to navigate. Both labyrinths and mazes symbolically reveal two sides of the human spirit: Complexity and simplicity; mystery and design; intuition and sensory experience. They are emblematic of the eternal philosophical tension between free will and fate.
We have been visiting La Rochelle, near Penhalonga, for decades and remember visits with small sons when the young maze was shoulder height for them – looking forward to the day when the hedges would be impenetrable and we would struggle to find our way to the mysterious centre. 
Twenty years later, the hedge has turned into straggly trees – with scars at head height marking where hedge-height once was.  One can still walk the paths to the centre but you can see through the walls – so most of the challenge is taken away.
La Rochelle’s gardens are extensive and were once a diverse botanical paradise with colourful herbaceous borders, rose gardens and different zones accommodating various plant habitats. The aloe hill still flourishes and azaleas tumble down steep hillsides – tangled up in a jungle of ancient delicious monsters sprawling up tall trees and spilling into clearings.
I met a gardener in the orchid house who has worked there for 38 years. He was a boy when the house was bequeathed by the Courtaulds to the National Trust.  He told me how sad it was to see the garden decline during our dark decade – without money and resources. Many of the dramatic herbaceous borders and extensive rose gardens are now gone. 
But a large circle of amazingly bright Namaqualand daisies still greet one cheerfully at the hotel entrance. And the orchids are glorious. The old orchid houses hold a wealth of plants – epiphytes on dead trees or thriving on air in hanging baskets, and some terrestrial samples potted in a mixture of charcoal and pine bark. Many were flowering from a snowfall of tiny white stars to huge fleshy specimens in purple and yellow. It looked like a revival – and the gardener, busy propagating them, told me that hopefully by next year, they can sell some again.
It demonstrates a kind of recovery, a flexibility in a context forever changed – and La Rochelle’s strength is and has been in adapting to shifting contexts and new realities
We slept overnight in the charming Large Rondavel – which had housed the Courtaulds while they were building their gracious home. Decorated with an intricate oriental style mural of entwining vines and birds, the rondavel is spacious and cunningly includes  bathroom, dressing room and kitchen on the outside circumference. We dined in the still elegant dining room of the hotel – three courses for US$12 – curried vegetable soup, a choice of chicken schnitzel or fried sole, and a coconut cake pudding. Very good value.
One plateglass window in the lounge features the names of Lady Courtauld’s guests – signatures engraved into the glass with her diamond – certainly an enduring symbol of a bygone age. Many of the signatures are famous names from the early days of Zimbabwe’s nationalist struggle – the Courtaulds kept an open house and entertained widely before the clampdown of the Ian Smith era found many of those figures jailed or exiled.
The house and garden are well worth a visit either for an overnight stay or just to enjoy a meal. (La Rochelle Hotel and Restaurant – 020 22250)

– g.jeke@yahoo.com