Privacy policy

River Oak Cottage (Nicola Blewett), whom you can reach at deanjorgensen111@gmail.com, is responsible for the personal information you give when you book or contact us. We are the responsible party under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

Secret Map runs this website and our booking system for us, as our operator. It processes your details only on our instructions and keeps them secure.

When you book we ask for your name, email address and, if you choose, a mobile number, your arrival time and a note to us. We use them to confirm and manage your stay and to reach you about it.

Card payments are made on Paystack's own secure page. We never see or keep your card details.

We send you news and specials from River Oak Cottage only if you said yes: by ticking the box when you book, by confirming the email from our sign-up box or trip planner, by pressing yes after your stay, or by asking us. We keep a record of when and how you said yes and the words you were shown.

Every such email names us and gives our address, and has a one-click unsubscribe. Unsubscribing never stops the emails about a booking you make.

We do not sell your details. Secret Map runs this site and our bookings, with the providers on its list at secretmap.co.za/legal/sub-processors (hosting, email delivery, maps and AI for the trip planner, which never receives your name or contact details). Paystack processes card payments into our own account.

Some of those providers are outside South Africa. They are bound by agreements that protect your information at least as well as POPIA does.

This site sets no tracking or advertising cookies. We count visits without cookies and without keeping your address.

Booking and payment records, and any tax invoice, for five years after the tax return they belong to, as tax law requires. Everything else until you ask us to delete it.

If you joined our email list but have never booked, we ask you once, three years on, whether you still want our news, and take you off the list if you don't answer within 30 days.

The record of when and how you said yes or no to our news is kept while you are on our list and for three years after you leave it, then deleted. If you ask us to erase your details, it goes at once.

You may ask what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. When we delete it, your name and contact details go, and the booking, its payments and any tax invoice stay as the law requires. Write to deanjorgensen111@gmail.com.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your information you may complain to the Information Regulator (inforegulator.org.za, POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za).