If there is one person at the Inn who knows it inside out, and who can tell you stories about its guests, its neighbors, its staff and also about its owners, it is Daniel.
Meet Daniel Plaatjie, our trusted and loyal Night Manager who has worked with us since we re-opened the doors on 1st November 2014.
Daniel is a true ‘Knysnarian’ and was born at Sout Rivier here in Knysna on the 11th November 1961. He has 9 siblings: five brothers and four sisters. His first employment, from 1982 to 1991, was with the famous Thesen family, in their logging/wood business (I promise I tell you more about the Thesen family and their influence on Knysna at a later stage). He did various wood working jobs.
In 1991 he went to work for the Knysna Hotel, until it was sold in 1994. The Knysna Hotel is nowadays known as the Knysna Log Inn – you will see it when you walk down to the Knysna Waterfront.
Daniel was then employed by Kit Stewart of the Phantom Forest Eco Reserve to complete the lovely picnic spots, the outside area and generally to get everything ready for what became an internationally award-winning ‘green’ reserve.
It was 1995 when Kit Stewart brought Daniel to the Wayside Inn to be the Manager at this new business that they had just purchased. The building was not yet quite complete and painting etc. was still in progress.
Four years later, in 1999, the Knysna Wayside Inn was sold to Tim Cunningham and Elle Peinke. Daniel continued to work here as Night Manager for 4 years. The business was then sold to John Williamson and Peter Saunders. They had the Wayside Inn for 3 years and, knowing what was good for them, kept Daniel on as Night Manager.
Daniel continued to be the Night Manager whilst Jaco and Anneke Botha owned the guesthouse until August 2014 when the doors were closed….
Erik Ekkelkamp and Ypie Kingma took over the business and employed me to run the inn as their General Manager. We re-opened the Knysna Wayside Inn on 1 November 2014. Without any hesitation, Daniel was called in to continue his wonderful service as Night Manager.
‘Daniel’ and ‘Knysna Wayside Inn’. Could actually be the same thing…
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