We awoke this morning to our first really chilly day. The rain and mist had descended and visibility was limited with no sign of the beautiful mountains that surround us. Maxwell, our host, and the chef really cheered us up with the most unbelievable breakfast though to really set us up for the day.
After breakfast, we were picked up and taken to the heart of the Boschendal Estate, the second largest wine estate in South Africa, for a walking tour of the farm. Yo-yo, our guide, walked us around the many plants that are grown here and talked us through the history of all of the buildings from their Dutch origins to how they are used today which was really interesting.
Afterwards, we walked the couple of kilometres back to our cottage and then drove the 15 minutes or so into the centre of Franshhoeck which is a really lovely town, obviously dominated by the wine trade. We spent a good couple of hours wandering up and down the Main Street and to our delight, as it was Saturday, they also had a lovely market which we visited. We then drove through Stellenbosch just so we could see it from the car before returning to the Boschendal Estate for wine tasting with chocolates!
We tasted 5 different wines all made by the estate from sparkling through to rose, white and red and each was matched with a delicious chocolate also made locally. It was absolutely delicious although we felt a little squiffy by the end!!
We then caught the safari bus back to our cottage which was great fun and had pizzas delivered for supper. We also had a power cut which was very exciting. South Africa has daily electricity cuts that are scheduled and known as ‘load shedding’ as they cannot currently create enough electricity for the demand. Although our cottage had backup batteries, even those sometimes power down for brief periods and they soon came back to life once we had turned some light switches off!
Tomorrow we are heading west and have a long drive to Oudtshoorn for the next leg of our South African adventure!
The Perry’s Travel Blog 