Farmer comedian now offers tours with a difference

DURBAN -- One of the Eastern Cape successes at the Indaba 2000 international travel and tourism show here is half of a comedy duo.

Grahamstown farmer Alan Weyer, who with his on-stage partner Brian Mullins made up the hit comedy act Boet and Swaer, has teamed up with neighbours Barry and Karen Podesta and Tarkastad game farmer and fisherman Johnny Morgan to form DTours.

Unlike his poker-faced and slow-talking Lower Albany colonial stage persona, he speaks of the project with excitement, explaining that the trips they are proposing take clients off the beaten track to discover the "secrets" of the province.

DTours has experts in fields ranging from history and palaeontology to farming.

"This area has so much. Do you know that 70 percent of the colonial military architecture still standing is in this province?" he asks.

He quickly skips to rock art, where he promotes the province as having the most and the oldest examples of this in the country.

Another of the passions of his group is being able to offer visitors a look at various farming operations in the region.

The world's most southerly pineapple production is in the Eastern Cape and the pineapples are highly desirable as the climate gives them a very good sugar to acid ratio.

Other agricultural options include visits to or stays on chicory, dairy or ostrich farms.

Weyer says these tours would be of interest to South African city dwellers and farmers from elsewhere in the world.

Partner Morgan has already had success in the fields of game and fishing tours which are to remain in the DTours portfolio.