A beautiful river flows through Spier. It's ancient, powerful and alive. The Eerste River (meaning "first" in Dutch and Afrikaans) was the reason settlers chose this fertile valley centuries ago. This extraordinary waterway has become central to the farm's vision. It symbolises the connection between people and place, past and future.advertisementDon't want to see this? [...]

A beautiful river flows through Spier. It's ancient, powerful and alive.

The Eerste River (meaning "first" in Dutch and Afrikaans) was the reason settlers chose this fertile valley centuries ago. This extraordinary waterway has become central to the farm's vision. It symbolises the connection between people and place, past and future.

For centuries, the Eerste has flowed from the Jonkershoek mountains toward the nearby Atlantic Ocean, nourishing everything in its path. At Spier, it has become both metaphor and measure, a reminder that all living systems are connected, and that by healing one thread in the web of life strengthens the whole.

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Over the past decade, Spier's nursery team has planted more than 40,000 indigenous trees along its banks, transforming degraded farmland into a thriving riparian forest. Wildlife has returned with porcupines, duikers, bat-eared foxes and even the occasional jackal. Birdlife hums with renewed energy.

"It's incredible how quickly life comes back," says Mariota Enthoven. "Even small changes, like rewilding or replanting riverbanks, start a ripple effect."

"But this work goes deeper than restoration. It's a meditation on time. The patience required to plant trees whose shade we may never sit under, and on how generosity toward the land...