Dave Larsen of Country Life (June 2002) said:
"Phyll Sephton's Woodcliffe farm lies at the end of the road.
Beyond it is wilderness all the way to the summit of the Drakensberg and beyond.
The farm has quaint thatched guest cottage situated several hundred meters from the guesthouse and enjoying views between sandstone cliffs to the high berg and beyond.
The area is like the KZN Drakensberg but more remote than anything you dreamed of.
There is a sense of space and true wilderness."
Stephen Haw, April 2000 in Sunday Times Explorer Magazine
"It doesn't get much better than this. The road out of Maclear to Woodcliff is a solitary dirt track with a single cloud shaped like a flying saucer hanging above it. I haven't been on my own for so long and now, while the others are out on horse trails and hunting down Bushman art, I'm just coming back from town with a couple of supplies and the Toyota all full of unleaded and ready to take on Naude's Neck tomorrow on the way to Rhodes.
If there's any part of the country that can still most truly be thought of as cowboy land this is it. It's not only the bar legends of horses and gun smoke, or the cowpokes leading cattle off in the distance, it's the angle of the sun, the mountain streams, the dust and the peculiar flat-topped butts of mountain that line the way.
At Woodcliff the road ends at a little thatch cottage, almost completely hemmed in by mountains, surrounded by birds and in the distance the solitary gurgle of a waterfall.
There are two horses French kissing in the field just below, there's kindling in the fireplace and the milk that I'm putting in my coffee is fresh and thick like cream.
Earlier at lunch a group of women talking about small-town life told me that despite the fact that women have to be imported around here, that everyone knows what you're doing before you do, and that you only get the Sunday papers on Monday, if at all, despite this... there's something else about Maclear and its out-of-the-way places that never quite lets go of you.
After only a day out here, I'm certain they're right. If ever one was looking for a place far from the maddening crowd, a place to get well and truly lost in, a place to lose oneself so completely one might even confuse it with being found... this is it.
The sun is edging over a mountain lip, the grass is bright verdigris and the sky is full of crimson dragons. A man on a horse is coming this way, driving a pack of donkeys before him. The smoke from his cigarette leaves a trail of little blue clouds. It's going to be cold tonight, and they say it might snow tomorrow."
Previous magazine articles
- April/May 1993: Daily Dispatch article by Dave Dennison
- April 1994: Getaway Magazine "Woodcliffe Cave Trails" by Leone Badenhorst December 1999 Getaway Magazine "Travelling the trails of the !Xam" by Don Pinnock
- February 2001: National Geographic "Paintings of the Spirit"
- April 2000: Sunday Times Explorer Magazine by Stephen Haw
- June 2002: Country Life Magazine lead article by Dave Larsen
- UK Mail and UK Geographic Magazine 2002 by Ruben Mowsowski
- 40 Most Significant Rockart Sites in South Africa by Woodhouse and Honne
- February 2010: Getaway Magazine "Riding the Dragon's Tail"
- January 2011: Getaway Magazine "Secret spots for skinny dipping in South Africa"
- July 2008: Caravan and Outdoor Life Magazine "Magical Maclear".
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