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Published: August 24th 2010
Stellenbosch
The town of Stellenbosch is an hour northeast of Cape Town and, along with Franschhoek, is the heart of the SA Winelands. It is also a lovely college town hosting the University of Stellenbosch. We spent two nights sleeping and the intervening day wine tasting.
Since we did not have a car, we decided to take an all day tour that visited four wineries for wine tasting, one for cheese tasting and also served lunch. Over breakfast a German couple warned that, for some, the tasting tour is a drink fest so we were pleasantly surprised by the people who were also on the tour. There were two American cousins, two women from Bermuda, a couple from Ireland and a couple from Germany. We were, however, the oldest by about 20 years.
At the first winery, Simonsig, we got a cellar tour and learned how wine is made here. After the tour, our guide led the tasting. The first wine was a champagne style bubbly which he opened it with a sword and the result was a decapitated bottle. Flashy and silly but the wine was good. The next winery, Fairview, also had cheese tasting alongside the
John and Penguins
Check out that beak.wine tasting. This is where the Goats Do Roam label (a play on Côtes du Rhône) is made. The cheeses were quite nice and were all made locally.
Next stop was lunch and we went to a small café in Franschhoek. It was the Irish woman’s birthday so we all had cheesecake and sang Happy Birthday. I knew singing Happy Birthday originated in America but the way the Germans and the Irish joined in, it obviously has spread.
We had two wineries to go…Dieu Donné which provided lovely views of the Franschhoek valley and a fourth winery back in Stellenbosch. By the last winery the group had bonded and the wine seemed incidental to the conversation. The wine was so incidental that we can not remember the name of the winery. So we were sorry to be returned to our hotel…everyone else was at a different hotel.
Hermanus
The next destination was the town of Hermanus (hair-man-us). It is east of Cape Town on the southern coast and is renowned for being able to watch the Southern Right Whales from the shore of the town.
We rented a car in Cape Town then drove along
Whale
Mama and calf a lovely seaside road that hugs the cliffs and has spectacular ocean views that remind me of California’s Hwy 1. We could see the Cape of Good Hope across False Bay. We saw baboons alongside the road beneath signs that say “Do not feed the baboons”. We stopped to visit a colony of African Penguins (formerly called Jackass Penguins). They are about 1 foot tall. Adults are the classic black and white with a black stripe across their chest. Juveniles are a brownish color. They were originally called Jackass Penguins because their mating call sounds like a braying donkey. (We attempted to upload a video of them...check it out and make sure the volume is turned up.)
Upon arriving in Hermanus, we found a place to stay for R300 ($45) per night. It does not face the water but is a cottage in a private home. We have a kitchen, sitting room with TV, bathroom and bedroom. We rented a heater from our hostess, Helen, for R10 ($1.50) per night because it is chilly and the cottage has no heat. The heater is a ceramic plate about 1.5 x 3 feet that stands upright and gets warm when plugged
Whale
Female on her back indicating to the surrounding males that she is not interested...yet. in.
Next we went to the Superspar (the local Safeway grocery store) to buy food for dinner. We took back roads and wound up driving past the township or slum or black section of town. The township housing we have seen around Cape Town is some of the worst in the country. Tin shacks with tin roofs held on by rocks. But right across the street was a housing development surrounded by a wall with McMansions to rival anything in the US. We had a philosophical discussion about recovering from the effects of apartheid without becoming a welfare state.
The next morning dawned clear, warm, and calm. We walked along the waterfront for several hours but only saw a single whale about a half mile away so we headed to the TI to look into boat based whale watching tours. As I mentioned, the weather today was beautiful but tomorrow is supposed to rain so we booked a 3pm trip.
We were on a catamaran that holds 87 people and it felt full. For the first 30 minutes, the announcer kept promising Southern Right Whales and finally they showed up. First we saw a sleepy teenager that
Ficks Pool
Still used for swimming but today was too cold. wasn’t doing much. Then we saw a mother and her calf. Finally we saw a breeding female and two males with her. She doesn’t actually mate until there are 10 or more males then she mates with all of them so no one knows who the father is. One of the males was an albino (a white whale ala Moby Dick). About 4% of the whales are albino; they start out white then slowly change to brown with black spots.
The next day we went for a walk along the cliff. What makes Hermanus so good for whale watching is that Walker Bay is so deep so close to shore. That means cliffs not sandy beaches are the rule. The town has built a lovely walking path running 10km along the cliff. We walked about 2km of it. One place we really enjoyed was Fick’s Pool. They had built a sea wall out of cement across a very small bay (1000 sq ft) creating a sea water pool that was protected from the wave action yet still had sea water in it. In the afternoon, we set out for Fernkloof Nature Reserve on the east side of town. We
Fynbos
Protea Longifolio were not sure what to expect but they had very pretty and well-maintained hiking trails. The biome in this region is called Afromontane (Africa Mountain) and had many plants of which we had never seen anything similar. Afromontane, as we understand it, is made primarily of bushes called fynbos. Since it is early spring, plants are starting to flower and we got Latin names for some of them. We also saw a bird called a Cape Sugar bird which is the size of a robin but has tail feathers twice as long as its body.
Cape of Good Hope
The next day (Sunday) we left Hermanus and headed for Simon’s Town on the Cape of Good Hope (CGH). It was a pretty drive that took about two hours mostly along the coast but also over a few mountain passes. The CGH is directly south of Cape Town.
We booked a room in Simon’s Town then set out to explore the Cape of Good Hope and our first stop was another African Penguin Colony. These were the same type of penguins that we had seen a couple days before but this was a different setting and we actually
Liberty Ship Wreck
Thomas T. Tucker, an American Liberty ship launched in Sept. 1942, foundered on rocks around the Cape of Good Hope two months later. It was officially lost due to enemy action, but a top secret radar installation at the time indicated otherwise. A decision was made not to warn the ship of it's perilous location so close to shore. saw and heard several doing their mating call.
We then drove out to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve which covers most of the southern end of the Cape of Good Hope. During our stop at the visitor’s center we learned about Liberty ships from WWII; there’s one sunk off the coast called Thomas T. Tucker, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The TTT was sunk off the coast in 1942 and the rusted remains can still be seen on the western shore of the Cape of Good Hope.
After leaving the visitor’s center our next stop was the Cape of Good Hope itself. It’s the westernmost of three promontories on the peninsula called the Cape of Good Hope. Next we drove to the northern part of the park to hike out to the TTT. On the way out, we passed some wild ostriches. The walk to the TTT was a pleasant one along the dunes and the beach of the Atlantic. The wind was blowing but it was relatively warm so not a bone-chilling walk. The TTT rests on the sand in about 12 different pieces slowly rusting away to obscurity. It has been nearly
Ostrich
Grazing, not burying its head in the sand. 70 years already so who knows how long it will take for the ocean to finally claim her.
Our walk back to the car was equally pleasant and upon reaching the car we encountered an entire flock (herd?) of ostriches - there must have been at least 20.
Our final stop in South Africa is Cape Town and we go there next. Stay tuned…
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Susan Craig
non-member comment
No video
Hello you two, Just wanted to let you know that when we tried to watch the video of the penguins it said "video not found or access denied". Just in case you might be able to fix it. Still loving reading about all of your adventures, and missed you tons at our family time in Ocean Shores and the reunion of both sides last Sunday. Stay safe and healthy. Love you Susan