What if it were possible to ride your mountain bike out of your yard and straight onto an expansive, safe singletrack trails network? To have no security barriers around your country garden? To have your own mini farm? To not rely on state-owned power and water supply? Well, all that and more is on offer at Fairview Estates.
Paid partnership with Fairview Estates
For many of us that are mountain bikers in Gauteng, all of the above sounds attractive. But it also seems so unrealistic. Stop for a moment and think about these questions:
- Are you happy wasting time sitting in traffic?
- Does it seem normal to have high walls and electric fencing around your garden?
- Should your kids have their childhood freedom crushed by the constant threat of crime?
- Are you fine with risking being attacked and possibly killed while riding your mountain bike?
- Is it okay that you will have drive to a trails park for the rest of your life to ride your mountain bike in relative safety?
- Does being at the mercy of Eskom and your local Water Board for power and water sit well with you?
- Are you content with breathing in smoggy air, particularly in the dry months?
- Is layering your kit significantly to ride during early winter mornings a schlepp you can do without?
Most of us can’t just change our living circumstances, but those of us that can, have options. While there’s been a semigration trend towards the Western Cape, the benefits of moving to Fairview Estates, near Ballito in KwaZulu-Natal are several and should be considered. Here’s a summary:
CLOSE TO GAUTENG
If you are invested in Gauteng with business, then it’s a quick one-hour flight away.
CLOSE TO AN AIRPORT
Fairview Estates is just inland of Ballito, which is really close to the King Shaka International Airport. It’s 20 minutes from your front door to the check-in desk!
CLOSE TO DURBAN
It’s just a 40-minute drive to Durban itself and closer to Umhlanga, which has become a major business and shopping hub.
BALLITO IS BUSTLING
Ballito is less than a 10-minute drive from Fairview Estates. The west of Ballito (on the ridge) has grown into a thriving shopping area with two large malls that offer all the major retailers, supermarkets and restaurant chains.
CLOSE TO THE BEACH
Ballito has great beaches, but so too does Chakas Rock and Salt Rock, all of which are a 15-minute drive from Fairview Estates.
BEACHES FOR SWIMMING
Because of the warm Indian Ocean, swimming all year round is possible at the local beaches, which haven’t changed much in the past few decades.
HIGH QUALITY SCHOOLS
Beside several private schools in the area, including Reddam, Crawford, Ashton and Curro, Umhlali Preparatory School, a Model-C school, offers exceptionally high standards of education, discipline and sport.
SELF-SUFFICIENT
Utilities are managed by a private company within Fairview Estates with the option to sell solar back to the Fairview Estates grid, while water supply (borehole) is also independent. No reliance on the state-owned enterprises for these daily essentials.
SECURE
Fairview Estates has a formidable, state of the art perimeter barrier that’s monitored by the estate security. The primary entry/exit points are manned by security with strict, state-of-the-art access control.
WARM WINTERS
Never ride with long tights or multiple jersey layers again! The winters are warm, ranging from 16-25 degrees Celsius.
OUR IMPRESSION
We spent a few days at Fairview Estates in early December 2023. We don’t own a home there, but wanted to get a feel from a Gauteng mountain biker’s perspective, so stayed with a resident. The first thing that we encountered was the high-level of security. The access control is managed superbly by the security staff. Coming from Gauteng, where we encounter access control daily, this is encouraging.
There were some homes completed and others under construction. None of them were on top of each other and each has its own element of natural features, some lower down, close to a dam, some higher up with ocean views – all very natural and unobtrusive in building style. Some of the homeowners have fully invested in micro-farming, which, based on the way the world is moving in terms of food production, makes a lot of sense.
There’s plenty of space at Fairview Estates. Obviously this will change a bit over time, but the homes we saw weren’t close together and were thoughtfully located off the main roads. According to the Nic Jordan, one of the developers, the smallest sites are 20 000 square metres – the equivalent of four rugby fields.
“The building of two homes per property is permitted, but rules prohibit anyone from building more than one home per hectare, so Fairview Estates will forever have the sense of space,” explained Jordan.
Having our own kids grow up in Johannesburg, where their safety was a constant concern, we love that the kids at Fairview Estates can roam around without constraints. It reminds us of how we used to play in the Veld as kids in the 1970s and 80s. Yes, it may be contained to pockets of secure residential estates, but there’s huge value in this kind of childhood safety and freedom.
As avid mountain bikers that have ridden at Holla Trails in the past, we were keen to see how Fairview Estates is integrated. Living in Randburg, we generally must drive at least 30 minutes to ride at a mountain bike trails park that offers any meaningful distance. Riding straight onto the trails from home is hugely appealing and that’s what you get at Fairview Estates.
Sections of the Holla Trails Blue, Purple and Silver Routes pass through Fairview Estates, which means you have mountain bike trails within the perimeter itself, so can essentially fit a 60-90-minute ride (depending on your fitness) without leaving the estate.
The real magic of course is being able to ride out of the estate and straight onto one of eight well-made, marked, measured and maintained mountain bike trails on the Holla Trails network. Traditionally an endurance focussed offering, recent updates have made the Pink and Red Routes more challenging from a skills and power perspective. There are also new Gravel Routes withing the network.
Holla Trails network isn’t contained in one piece of land – it crosses a public road and several farms, which aren’t fenced. Although we left the Fairview Estates boundary to ride, we felt a level of safety that we don’t enjoy when riding unfenced land in Gauteng. In fact, we avoid riding unfenced routes in Gauteng and head for the relative safety of established MTB trails parks to at least feel some measure of personal safety.
We’re not currently in a position to invest in a piece of land and build a home at Fairview Estates, but if we were, it would undoubtedly be a strong option for us. – Sean Badenhorst, Editor, TREAD Media
To find out more about living in freedom in the countryside, check out the Fairview Estates website here.
