Stellenbosch -- Wine Country!

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Today's ramblings come to you from a smelly, noisy hostel after a day of wine tasting - so my aplogies if this makes very little sense!

We climbed into our blue truck bright and early this morning and headed down the freeway towards the wine region of Stellenbosch. Very quickly we realised that this trip is going to test our inner constitutions as even on good road being so high up offers very little suspension & we are promised some rocky trips in Namibia this week! On our way out of Cape Town it was facinating to see shanty towns for miles, a standard of living that is so difficult to imagine but that seems to be slowly alleviated with new basic brick housing being built within the townships.

On arrival in Stellenbosch we had time to wander around town, this town is known for the wineries that are around the town and for the university. It certainly has a university town feeling with many quaint eateries & coffee shops. Along with some guests from the hostel we are staying in we piled into a mini bus and set off for a day of exploring the wineries of the region. At our first winery we had a lesson on the process of wine making as well as the tasting procedure and consquently all felt slightly pretentious as we swirled, sniffed and swilled our wines to get the most of the taste. Alot of the wineries were introduced by the French when they came to the Cape so all the grapes used were french and offered strong, varying finishes on our pallets. Throughout the day we covered 4 wineries and had lunch in a local town, during which Megan & I may have offended some innocent English tourists with our open views on local conditions in Central Australia & my opinion of English border control! We held back on the wine at the final 2 wineries!

It was a full day but I can't really ellaborate on the fact that we spent the day drinking different wine & eating cheese!

Tomorrow we head to Namibia where canoeing along the Orange River is on the cards and our first test at this camping business. I'll let you know how it goes next time we get internet access!

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