Like a gracious sports star, Ryk Diepraam declares: "The victory isn't mine; it belongs to nature."
He even pays tribute to his opponent, which happens to be Eskom, for submitting to reason.
The "nature" he is talking about is the Avontuur Valley, a picturesque landscape of mountains with craggy rock faces and gorges dissected by shiny streams, about halfway between Middelburg and Loskop Dam in Mpumalanga.
Diepraam's contest with Eskom was about a power line that was destined to cross his farm and cut practically through the middle of the rest of the valley.
The credit he gives to "nature" is for using its beauty, as he puts it, to persuade the national electricity supplier to relent and to move the line so that it will now bypass not only his farm but the entire valley.
One thing he is somewhat resentful about is that Eskom has not had the good grace to inform him of its decision, particularly seeing that he was the only one to take up the fight for the preservation of the valley.
Sipho Neke of Eskom's communications department has confirmed that the line has indeed been moved to avoid running through the valley.
"This is for both ecotourism and environmental considerations," he says.
I meet Diepraam in Middelburg, and only later do I realise that the meticulous way he parks his battered car is so that he can push-start it when we return from our visit in my car to his Buffalo Gorge farm in the valley.
He introduces himself as an armgat (poor wretch), self-consciously stroking his stubble.
He dons dark glasses and there is a guineafowl feather stuck into the side of his sweat-rimmed veld hat.
Diepraam's crusade goes back five years when, he says, he was the only objector to turn up at a meeting called by Eskom in Middelburg to hear views on the power line's proposed route from its Duvha power station to a sub-station about 230km away in Limpopo province.
Diepraam objected to the unsightly line crossing his farm, telling the Eskom officials that they might as well buy out his whole farm as the line would destroy its natural beauty and the living he was trying to make from ecotourism ventures such as horse-riding, walks, abseiling, veld schools and camping.
He says senior Eskom officials subsequently came to his farm, and they must have thought "what have we here?" when they saw this barefoot white man on horseback.
He had them inspect the farm on horseback with him, after which Eskom decided to move the line so that it wouldn't cross his farm, but run through the valley some way off.
Again he objected, as the line would not only spoil his view and his business, but would also destroy the natural beauty of most of the valley.
On hearing that Eskom has indeed decided to have the line bypass the valley altogether, Diepraam says he is more excited than ever about the tourism potential of the farm he bought seven years ago after losing his job as a foundry manager.
Bumping along the farm's rocky tracks, he spouts homilies such as: "People ask me whether I own the farm.
"I tell them I don't. I merely manage it for the Creator."
He talks about finding a partner to join him in building a wellness centre on the farm and he is also trying to find ways of attracting more visitors to his camping site.
Diepraam provides the tents and mattresses at the site and visitors have to supply their own bedding.
He even has a "honeymoon suite", he confides.
It consists of a tent he pitches in a particularly beautiful nook of the camp.
He puts down a ground sheet and mattresses and places a flower on each of the pillows.
He admits he has not had a honeymoon couple yet.
But some time ago a couple got engaged on the farm and Diepraam hopes they might return one day to be his first honeymoon pair.