That was easy!

Probably one of the easiest long haul journeys I can remember - maybe because my memory is limited now - but everything went according to plan. The flights were on time, the connections went smoothly and I even watched a couple of movies.

I enjoyed Christian Bale's performance as Dick Cheney in 'Vice' - having met a few of Cheney's classmates in my time it was interesting to watch the story unfold. I also watched  'Green Book' and while it helped pass a couple of hours I'm not sure why it won the Best Picture Oscar.

It is still hard to get used to arriving in the Shopping Mall that used to be Heathrow Airport - although I have now figured out that the boarding gates are always at the far end of the Mall. I guess there are lots of people who cannot survive without that constant retail buzz but I still cannot understand who on earth would be buying suitcases and other luggage items in the departures hall of an airport.

London was cool, damp and very misty when we arrived - a complete contrast to Edinburgh where the sun shone and the sky was a crystal blue. To cap it all, our baggage arrived promptly, the taxi driver was waiting at the pick up point and we were home less than hour after landing which must be close to a record.

It's good to be home - as Linda said, it hardly feels like we have been away. Our neighbours had very kindly stocked the fridge for us with all the essentials - pity we didn't ask them to help with the unpacking.

I'm back to the airport tomorrow morning on my way to visit my mother for a couple of days - hope that journey goes as well. 

Heading Home

So, eleven weeks after we left Edinburgh, we are almost finished packing and ready to head to Cape Town for our flight home via Heathrow.

It seems like the right time, we have had a great time during our stay here at Pearl Valley and I'm sure we'll be back here, but Edinburgh beckons and hopefully Spring will have arrived by the time we get there.

It has been interesting to see how the weather has changed here as Summer has turned to Autumn and although today was a bright sunny day with the temperature pushing 30C, it was a cool 12C in the morning and last week I heard a Cape Town radio station forecast a 'chilly 20C'.

For the first time, we have been here to see the leaves changing on the trees and on the vines. When we arrived in January, the vines were bright green and laden with grapes waiting to be harvested. Now, the leaves are a pale yellow, a deep red, or brown and we passed one plot today where they had already been pruned for the winter.

We've had quite a busy social life with Sue and Ally and Cam and their friends from the UK who have visited, and also with the people we have met here at Pearl Valley. With one or two exceptions, we even got on well with the people we met on our trips away.

Although we have visited a good number of wineries, there are still many, many more to investigate - enough for a few years of future visits. We stuck to our self-imposed rule to only buy wine from the cellar door and have found a number of very drinkable wines - from a variety of grape cultivars and in many different styles.

Another memorable trip to SA with a variety of different experiences which only serve to make us more determined to keep returning.
 
All that remains is to load up the car, hand back the keys of the house and see what champagne BA are serving in the Lounge this year.

There is a good chance that my blog entries will not survive our return home - as usual - but Linda is keen that I keep it going because it is such a useful record of where we have been and what we have done. This appears to be increasingly important as memory becomes more fallible.

Watch this space - I'll definitely have to report on the Buchu Gin experiment......

Wellington Wine Walk

For our last Friday in SA, we had booked places for a day walk - joining a group of 7 who were on the 3 day programme.  Immediately bumped into a couple who we had met on our trip to Mont Rochelle with the Pearl Valley hiking group. We had such a good time that we signed up for a second day with them as well.

We started with an introduction to Buchu from Elsabie Du Plessis. We have seen Buchu in the Fynbos and drunk it as a tea on its own or mixed with Rooibos. However our first tasting was a Buchu Brandy - KWV three year old brandy, which is probably better as a fire-lighter than a digestif, infused with fresh buchu stalks. Quite a pleasant herbal drink - the Buchu had rounded all the harsh edges in the brandy.

Buchu is claimed  to be a good treatment for a variety of ailments including prostate issues but probably more effective as an infusion with water rather than brandy. Linda bought dried leaves for tea and fresh leaves to infuse in Gin - watch this space for the review.

Before we hiked through the Buchu and olive farm and the vine nursery, we also tasted a variety of other products which Elsabie makes with the farm produce - the Pinotage jam and chutneys were probably my favourites.

For lunch we stopped at Klein Rhebokskloof where Renee Hildenbrand served us an excellent lunch and treated us to an amusing and informative tasting of the 6 wines that shes produces on the farm along with a very good olive oil. Lunch seemed to last slightly longer than the morning hike, but we eventually set off again, passing a variety of wineries and restaurants along the way until we reached the overnight stop at the Dunstone Country Estate. We left the group there and headed home - surprised to note that we had hiked something close to 16 Km.

Day two started with a bus ride to the top of the Bains Kloof Pass and a hike down hill to Doolhof Wine estate, passing Andrew Bain's house - where he lived while building the pass - along the way.

We started our first tasting at 10.00 am and following  a 10-11Km hike we managed tastings at two more wineries and a very pleasant lunch at Welvanpas. We really enjoyed visiting the wineries which were well off the beaten track - we'll have to try to remember how to find them again for our next visit.

Our final stop at Lelienfontein was a good way to finish the day although probably the least favourite tasting of the bunch. Although Linda did find one bottle that she quite liked.

A great way to spend our last couple of days in good company - before we start packing and head home.

Hiking at Jonkershoek

Early start on Saturday morning for the short drive to Jonkershoek reserve, near Stellenbosch, for a hike on the waterfall trail with Sue, Ally and Cam. A decent 7km hike to a waterfall which had little more than a trickle of water but some stunning views.

It had warmed up by the time we were returning and some of the groups we met on the path may have wished they had started a little earlier.

Bushman Rock Art

The Cederberg is one of the best places to see the rock art left by the Bushmen who roamed through the area more than 2000 years ago and at Oudrif, we saw some great examples - just a short hike from the camp.  

We've seen some of this rock art in other places but these examples were so clear and crisp - even though some of them are at least 1500 years old.