The inland drive from Cape Town to home....and a last blog for 2021...

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Last blog of the year! How was your year of 2021? Just four weeks to go and we are already in 2022! Well, we are clearly not going to complain about our year 2021. I have to admit, to this minute, I have no idea what is in for us in 2022...but there are a lot of options!



One thing for sure, 2021 brought us the chance to visit amazing places and stay in more amazing places in lovely South Africa. Few weeks ago I thought the international tourists would be by now back in the country and the good deals would be over. Well, I spoke too fast...Omicron has simply isolated South Africa from the world for the last 10 days....and we have no idea where all this is really going!



This trip was 4,600kms over 19 days in our little rental Suzuki Swift. Smooth ride down from home to Cape Town by the Indian Ocean Coast and the return via the inside "hills". I play a total of 21 courses on those 19 days. As of today, I've play 71 different courses in 2021 with the majority in South Africa. It's actually quite and achievement and I'm slowly on my way to play the top 100 courses of this country. Just have to fly to Joburg to play some 13 more of them....but with Omicron, this is not happening any time soon!



This blog is about the drive from Franschoek to Worcester, Robertson, Oudtshoorn, Bloemfontein, and finally Clarens before heading home. That's basically driving all the way through the last big area of wine producing in the country around Robertson. Here, it's the bulk production, and just by looking at the vineyards you know it's mass production. Not something we drink here. But yes, while living in Bangkok or the Seychelles, I've drunk few of those. Not much personality if you speak of the wine, but some are still drinkable...trust me, not all of them!



Than came the Karoo, one of the desert areas of South Africa. We are not far away from the coast, it's actually just across the mountain range. Oudtshoorn is just 60kms from George. Well, here, forget about top restaurants or top wine. It's back to the basics! The drive is superb. It's pretty hot, so with all the quality wine we have, I make sure we don't stop much without the aircon working full powerin the car. The road from Oudtshoorn north to Bloemfontein is amazing for the first 2 hours, before you reach the truly boring drive on the N1...but this is a first for me and was happy to do the drive!



Bloemfontein is supposed to have been a beautiful city in the past. These days, it's just good enough for a stop-over before two long drives. I've now play the top 2 golf courses of the city. We have one nice restaurant where we love to stop. The hotels are just super basic too....so in and out is my best future experience with Bloemfontein!



Our last stop is Clarens. Funny, in March, this was our first stop of a 5,500kms three week other special road trip. The hotel is super cute. Here, we love to eat trout, do some local shopping. Here you can walk the streets, which is a pretty rare experience in South Africa...even more after sunset! To top it up, the Clarens Golf Course is not in the top 100, but I believe it should be! So we will be back for more.



The last day, I cut the 5 hours drive to home in 2 with a stop at the superb Victoria Country Club in Pietermaritzburg. We were home by 5pm...happy to find home and back to my kitchen. The wine list has been sorted out.



Next trip coming in January....but how and where, we still have no idea....just preparing some serious "stuff" for the first few months of 2022...if we can travel!



Stay Safe, wishing you all already a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our beach!

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[Home and Away]

And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you!!!
We are all looking forward to some serious travel in 2022.