Cheese And Wine .....

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Day 47 - Paarl - 14/9/09

Set off from the car hire office at 1000 as we pulled out and made our way to the vineyards. Earlier on that morning I was getting my hair cut I was talking to her about my toe and pick pocketing episode and she told that Cape Town was the 4th most dangerous city in the world, using what stats? In what context? Behind who? Basra? Bagdad? Jo'burg? We hit the road and made our way out of Cape Town, eventually we started to see beautiful vineyards and rolling countryside.
We arrived in Paarl, stopping in the town to get a better map of the vineyard region from the tourist information office. The first vineyard we stopped at was the Nederburg vineyard where we were greeted with a glass of sparkling wine. We were presented with the tasting menu and decided to go with the one which matched the wines with the various chesses; it was sooooo good! He talked us though the 2 whites and the 2 red wines, explaining the region they came from and other information; I sat there not really paying attention just eating and appreciating the cheese. We ended it by discussing what wines we preferred and why; and we rated them and decided which was the best wine, trying to sound like we knew what we were talking about! Danielle and Pascal brought a bottle and then we jumped back into the car and started our mission to find the Fairview vineyards. The Fairview vineyards is a majestic looking building, apparently they make awesome cheese as well; can't wait! We got out of the car and the first thing we saw was a goat climbing a spiral staircase attached to a tower. Bizarre!! May be it helps them make better cheese or something. There were two tasting options available here a 20 Rand one and one for 60 Rand. We decided that we should go for the more expensive one, as we are only going to be doing this once. The 60 Rand one was like the Nederburg one where we got the cheese to match. There were 10 wines to try on the list, we were given the option to add some more wines; I asked if I could add a Chenin Blanc to it, just because I have had it before and really liked it unlike most wines. He then said that he would include 2 dessert wines as well. Every now and again he would bring out another wine of the same type allowing us to compare, for example we would get the Fairview Chenin Blanc and then he would bring out a Fairview Spice Route Chenin Blanc. The list had gone from 10 to about 17 different types of wines. By the end we all were well and truly pissed. The Chenin Blanc's were my favourite but all the time we were drinking we were eating the cheese as well; my favourite cheese were the dessert cheese, OH MY GOD! They were so nice, cheese laden with apricots and cranberry; it was like eating cheesecake, actually I liked it so much I had 5 out of the 8 pieces and the guy had to bring more out!

I was quite drunk; that's what happens when you drink loads of wine, only sleeping for 2 hours and having a little tiny muffin for breakfast. I feel asleep in the car and Cat dropped me, Duncan and Danielle off at the Stumble Inn in Stellenbosch; that's literally what we did! We slept for a couple of hours before meeting up with Cat and Duncan for dinner. It was a sad night as it was my last night travelling with them. I flopped into bed; a little sober and a little sadder.

Day 48 - Jeffries Bay - 15/9/09

Got up extra earlier today as the Baz Bus was coming to pick me up and I needed to get something to eat before hitting the road. Pascal, Danielle and I found this little pastry shop where we all had croissants and coffee. It would be the last time that I would be having breakfast with them as we both now would be going off doing our own thing, my adventure truly started now! My wine that I had brought in Paarl turned up at reception after Danielle had left it in the car that had dropped us off at the Stumble Inn, at that moment the bus pulled in and it was hugs and cuddles all round.

The bus journey was going to be 12hours long and 750 odd kilometres to Jefferies Bay. It was going to be a long long day. Along the way I listened to my iPod, read my book and chatted to the other passengers. People got on, people got off, lunch stops and dinner stops; no wonder why it took so long!
I arrived at Jefferies Bay Backpackers at 2100 and crashed onto a sofa, after a couple of minutes I signed in at reception and paid for my night. After I had threw my pack into my room, which was located outside the front door by the bar, I went back inside and sat down in the common room and chatted to the small group of people who were watching some really crap film, that actually later on got turned over to the Discovery Channel. We were all talking, me, an Australian girl and two English guys who were on the Baz Bus with me, all of a sudden the owner of the hostel told me to go and get my bags from outside and bring them into one of the inside rooms. There was a certain amount of confusion, nobody really understood what was going on but apparently one of the street kids who comes to the hostel for some food every now and again, had came and told the owner to call the police as some men had got out of cars with guns. The owner had called the police who weren’t, by the sounds of it doing anything about it and the two English lads were really freaked out, they got knives from the kitchen and one of them was originally born here and his uncle lives in Port Elizabeth; the next town over, called him up and asked to be picked up. Me and the Australian girl just sat in the common room, watching how they made guitars, for us freaking out really wasn’t an option, we had nowhere to go, no one to call. Eventually we just crashed out and that was the end of that!

Day 49 - Port Elizabeth - 16/9/09

Jeffries Bay is a sleepy little beach town that apparently is a surfer paradise. Wioke up and went for breakfast in one of the many cafes, I picked the Sunflower Cafe, mainly because I had been given a voucher for it, there I saw the two English lads, who, were more relaxed this morning that may be because there were no men with guns wondering about! Something bugged me about these two as they said that they were in the police and the other one used to be in the army so they shouldn’t have reacted like they did; it was all very curious. After eating and paying for breakfast, we wondered around town, checking it out, all we found were a large majority of surf shops, which, was, to be expected as this is surfer paradise!

We all walked back to the hostel where we wasted away the hours drinking beers whilst we bathed in the sun. Whilst we were drinking the Australian girl got some kind of rope and tied it up round one end of the pool and did the same with the other end making sure, at both ends, it was as tight as possible. We looked on in interest with said beer in hand as she climbed up and started to use the rope as a tightrope, making her way across the pool then SPLASH!!! as she fell in. Swimming to the side she got out and tried again and again until she did it. Then she tried to get us to do the same, do I look like a performing clown I asked. There was no response. We gathered up the remaining beers and headed off to the beach where we sat watching the sun setting. We got back to the hostel just in time for me to pick up the Baz Bus and the 45 minute journey to Port Elizabeth, after doing the rounds picking up all the other backpackers, we headed off. It seemed a really good crowd, everybody was busy talking, intermingling with each other. There was a couple from England; Aaron and Rachel, Sebastian from Holland and Georgie from Australia. During the course of the drive it was discovered that we would all be getting back onboard the bus heading out of Port Elizabeth, the only reason why we were spending the night here was because it was a place where we had to stop before heading off to Durban. I was the first off the bus, wishing everybody good night
The hostel was dead; in face I discovered that I was the only person there, after using the internet I fell asleep to wake bright and early for the bus to Durban!!!

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Photos

Wine
From The Nederburg Vineyards

Tasting Or Restaurant ...
I'll Have The Liquid Diet Please ....

More Wine
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Fairview .....
The Holy Grail Of Vineyards