Welcome to White Pearl, Mozambique

It’s not often that I’m left speechless, but our arrival at White Pearl Resort in Ponta Mamoli in Mozambique did almost exactly that. And yes, I am pretty sure that it’s breathtaking serenity and beauty were greatly enhanced by the CRAZY day that we’d had – a border crossing from South Africa into Mozambique that involved HOURS of gear-clearing and of us sitting in the hot sun, numbed, lethargic and frustrated; and then driving along some of the most interesting ‘roads’ (read ‘sand dunes’) I’ve ever had to adventure through (30kms took our caravan of support vehicles 3 hours) BUT, that didn’t change the fact that we were given the warmest welcome by Rachel, Amos and their team when we arrived, and we’d officially arrived in paradise.

What usually sets special places like this apart from the rest is the attention to detail. Here’s a tiny example – within an hour of us settling into our beautiful rooms, dinner arrived for Sophie and Isla, and on the tray was one of Isla’s dummies that someone had found in reception. They’d gone to the trouble of connecting all the relevant dots and made sure that it was on her dinner tray so that she had it in time for bed. That might sound irrelevant, but when your kids have spent 12 hours in a car, and someone’s taken the time to show that much care, it melts your heart and makes you feel immediately at home.

And of course then there is the sheer size of our group – like I said in this post about our stay in Maputo, we literally explode into every place we go, usually fairly scruffy and travel weary, and with a LOT of kit. The White Pearl team were completely unflustered and undaunted, and endlessly kind and accommodating. Yes, we never wanted to leave. And yes, it was a complete highlight of our entire month on the road – falling asleep to the magical sound of the waves crashing on the beach, seeing a Loggerhead Turtle laying eggs in her sea-side nest, Rob and Sophie horse riding on the beach, feasting on delicious Mozambican food and generally feeling like we were in heaven. Thank you SO sincerely to the amazing White Pearl team, we will never forget our time with you and can’t wait to come back! X

Here are a few more pics to take you through our stay.

I hate my job. NOT.

Grant and Louise (our producers) with their ‘We conquered CRAZY roads to get here’ faces on. Thanks Suzuki for giving us such legendary vehicles to get around in, otherwise we might still have been stuck in Mozambique!

Our White Pearl friends – THANK YOU a thousand times for everything.

Rob and Sophie horse riding on the beach

BOSS-MEN on the beach. Erik, Farrell, Chris and Zahir.

It’s not often Chris gets to film with boardies and no shoes, he was as happy as a clam. We started shooting at 6am this day to beat the heat, and to beat the sea breeze. We shot the whole cooking sequence in a record 4 hours (it’s usually 6-8 hours of cooking, and a total of 12-14 hours of footage goes into any single 24 minute episode)

In between takes with our most precious hearts

And in between takes with my notes!

I love these guys X

Really, truly, how many other Directors out there take the time to earn smiles like THIS? Thank you Chris for being so much more than our Director and DOP.

Chad! Showing the prep who’s boss.

The calm before the storm!

PLEASE try the Summer Fruit Fresca that I make in this episode! All recipes here.

Sunset Magic.

A real, live, LOGGERHEAD TURTLE laying eggs. They’re extremely rare and this is a bucket-list experience that I will never forget.