12onParkesLane

12onParkesLane is a set of ground-floor guest rooms on Parkes Lane, each opening through sliding glass doors onto its own tiled patio with the green immediately beyond it.

It is all on one level with no steps to negotiate, and there is parking both on the street and off it. Palms grow against the wall outside. The place runs almost entirely on solar, so the power stays on when the grid does not, which is the sort of thing you only notice once it is missing.

Coffee machine on the shelf

Each room keeps its kitchenette on an open shelf: a microwave, a kettle, a coffee machine and a mini fridge beneath. There is a dining table, a seating area and a desk, with a wall-mounted television carrying streaming apps. Enough to make breakfast and a hot drink at any hour, and not pretending to more.

Striped throws, garden doors

The rooms are simple and comfortable: a double with grey pillows facing a wardrobe under framed art, a bed with a blue and white striped throw beside a mirror, one with navy pillows facing glass doors open to the garden. Bedding, towels and toiletries come with the room. Bathrooms are compact, one narrow with a patterned tile splashback, another with a glass-walled shower cubicle, a third with mosaic tile round the sink.

Out onto the tiles

The patios are small and tiled, sliding doors leading straight from the room and a palm tree standing over one of them. There is a sun terrace and a garden.

Parkes Lane and the reserve

Leisure Isle is flat and residential, joined to Knysna by the Armstrong Road causeway. Steenbok Nature Reserve runs the northern shore, free and open at any hour. There are apartments on the island if you want a kitchen of your own.

Works for

One or two people who want a room, a patio and the lights to stay on, and who plan to eat out.