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Published: August 13th 2007
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Oak barrels
Ready for the wine Hermanus Rach hid huddled under the duvet most the night having nasty spider nightmares but no shark dreams for some reason! We decided to visit Hermanus on our way to Stellenbosch, to spot some whalies. We had dropped by Hermans the previous afternoon, but now the waves were crashing all over the rocks, washing over the lower terraces of the seafront restaurants. We had been lucky to get a shark dive yesterday morning, as yesterday afternoon and today's trips had been cancelled due to rough sea conditions. So a whale watching cruise was out of the question, but this was fine as locals had already explained the whales come right into the bay and you can see them easily from the cliff tops. Sure enough, as soon as we parked up at the look out point, we saw a couple of Southern Right Whales swimming across the bay. The whales kept emerging from the choppy waves and were easy to spot thanks to their blow holes. We saw a few more whales and a playful seal enjoying the surf, and a cute rock dassie on the cliff top.
Stumbling in Stellenbosch Gav joined us on our trip to Stellenbosch, where
Tasting begins
Let the quaffing begin! we had booked a wine tour package with Stumble Inn. Stellenbosch was a lovely university town but the Stumble Inn was a rather grotty backpackers - but hey we had a cheap deal in its neighbouring wing Huis Chuffy and hoped we would be too inebriated to notice the room. It was still wet and windy that afternoon so we headed to the cinema to see Die Hard 4. South Africans have very strange taste in popcorn! Sweet sugary popcorn wasn't on the menu (and Rach can't have the toffee stuff after puking over Debra during Indiana Jones in Cannock cinema) but you could sprinkle on BBQ, Salt & Vinegar, Cheese or Garlic flavour no problem. Yuck! We opted for Salt & Vinegar. We went to Dros to enjoy a few beers and a nice meal. Oh dear, succumbed to sharing another delicious Malva pudding.
The Wine Tour with Easy Rider started at 10.30am! Our first winery was Simonsig, where we looked around the cellars and discovered how crucial the harvest time is in terms of influencing the wine flavour. South African grapes grow in a warm climate, so the grapes have a higher sugar content and therefore ultimately
Goats
The goats residance! have a higher alcohol content - hurrah! Our guide ponced about by brandishing a sword to open a bottle of champagne (but you can't call it champagne because it's from South Africa). He was probably just trying to impress the blonde South African girl in our group whose unnaturally large breasts became the subject of much drunken debate later that afternoon. Anyway, Jase was glad Gav (who is a nurse) had supplied us with Zantac as we had to quaff a glass of the bubbly first. Next up was a delicious Chenin Blanc that was supposed to have tropical fruit flavours "oh yes, I'm smelling lychee!". We did get very excited when we could actually smell the green peppers in a glass of white! This was followed by a glass of rather disappointing Shiraz, usually a favourite of ours, so Gav (eschewing our friend Eddie) bought a bottle of the Chenin Blanc to keep us going to the next winery.
We climbed aboard the minivan to our next stop, the very touristy Fairview winery, where bizarrely a bunch of goats live in a little fairytale tower. The winery is also famous for it's goats cheese, which was pretty smelly
Trick eh!
Still sober!! just! Oh and nice wine! and vile, so Rach stuck to the wine tasting. Jase really liked the halloumi - he thought it tasted like chicken goujons. There were lots of yummy wines advertising enticing flavours such as vanilla and Christmas cake - but to be honest we couldn't taste them anymore.
Franschoek - the French quarter - was our next destination. The winery was set in the most beautiful hillside, so we sat outside quaffing several red and whites, although Gav harrassed the wine server by continously telling her "not to be shy" whilst pouring. Finally we visited a trendy winery (God knows where by now!) and was served by a Russian Wrestler who the lads found strangely attractive. Maybe it's because she gave us four whites and four reds each, but the subtle differences between wines with a month's difference in age, was lost on our sozzled palates. We all left rather piddled and we had all made friends on the van, particularly a nice Irish couple and a Dutch couple. As we dropped the Dutch couple off at their hostel, Jase drunkenly quoted a line from Austin Powers Goldmember by shouting "See you later you crazy Dutch bastards!". Suddenly realising there
franschoek
Nice views wasted on piddled people was another Dutch couple on the van, who we hadn't spoken to. Oh well, let's hope they have seen the film.
Back at the hostel, we started our evening session with Gav doing another Eddie and buying a round of Jaegar Bombs (a glass of Red Bull with a Jaegarmeister dropped in the middle). We wandered into town to meet the rest of the wine tour group, but they were all very sensible and stayed in. We had a few beers and Jelly Bean shooters in Dros and then found a Rock Bar and made ourselves comfortable for the evening. We had far too many shorts and rounded off the evening with a classic takeaway. We literally stumbled back to the Stumble Inn - Gav fell into the storm drains on route and between the journey home and waking up in the morning, all of us had a chance to see what we had consumed throughout the day!!!!!
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Debra
non-member comment
popcorn blah
I can't watch Indiana Jones without thinking about Rachel puking over me at the cinema. I remember getting in the shower with all my clothes on. Like the goat-house! Is it just me or does Gav look a bit like Ian McKellen?...