Hikes and Bikes

Duncan and I had both imagined that the pace of our last few days in the Cape would be considerably slower than the past week.  As it turns out, I'm writing this on Tuesday 24th Oct, while flying from Cape Town to Kuala Lumpur - a full 5 days from where I left off. So while I'd like to think that we stopped to breathe more deeply, in retrospect, I'm not sure we did.

Duncan's office at Mont Rochelle Estate 
Thursday saw Paula and Elaine leave Franschhoek, giving us the run of P's gorgeous cottage.  We took a day to catch up on admin, swapping between free wifi at a craft beer 'cafe', Tuk Tuk, and James' ever generous offer of Mont Rochelle Hotel. I blogged, Duncan had meetings and caught up on emails.  And - after all our meals out in the past week - cooking dinner and eating in was fun.  Especially when your boyfriend has bought a selection of wonderful local wines.  😀



Tanks recharged, we were up and out earlyish on Friday morning. Destination: Mont Rochelle National Park, specifically, the top of Perdekop, a local 1600m mountain.  The park is a 10 minute drive out of Franschhoek and as we climbed the pass to the entrance, the town dropping away behind us it looked like we'd have a good hike.  Seeing as we will be climbing Mount Kinabalu in Borneo in a couple of weeks' time, both of us need to get some training in.  We set off up the steepest part of the trail, spotting occasional lizards, birds of prey and lots of  pretty mountain flowers. The trail steepened and as we got higher, the clouds started rolling in.  It really was quite an ascent, Duncan maintaining a healthy distance
At the top, in the clouds
ahead of me as I wheezed my way up, wishing I hadn't left my hiking poles back at the cottage.  Nearing the top, things got pretty chilly; the clouds had rolled in big time.  All very atmospheric, but those fantastic views we had been promised at the bottom were nowhere to be seen.  Just glimpses of them as the thick clouds scudded over us.

We didn't spend long at the top (too cold and windy!), quickly headed along the ridge (still cold and windy) and eventually onto the path winding down the valley (less cold and windy).  16km round trip we were back at the car around 4pm, pretty exhausted.  So there was only one thing we could think of to revive ourselves.... GO WINE TASTING!  I know you're thinking that we should stop, go home and have a day off the sauce, but seriously when you pass a wine estate every couple of 100 metres  along the road, it is EXTREMELY difficult not to poke your nose in.

So, a quick tasting at Stony Brook, we then popped into Holden Manz, whose wines have won a lot
Duncan and Paul in the Holden Manz cellars
of awards.  Paul, the assistant winemaker more than made up for the less-than-effusive welcome we'd received a Stony Brook, and gave us a private tour of the cellars.  The owner, Gerard Holden also came over for a chat, which released us from the clutches of some very drunk Norwegians who had arrived on the Wine Tram. No kidding.  Franschhoek has a Wine Tram, for which you buy a day ticket and then get driven from vineyard to vineyard, tasting 5 or 6 wines at each one.  And South Africans don't believe in spittoons, so it's not really tasting, it's plain old drinking.  We made our exit just before being strong-armed into a game of Scandinavian Yahtzee. Lucky escape.

Get on yer bike!
We had been planning a quiet day on Saturday lazing around in the sunshine, but a couple of things cropped up to change all that.  1. Paula let me know that she and her guy would be heading back to Franschhoek in the afternoon as Peter was competing in a triathlon locally on Sunday and 2. Duncan had an invitation from an outfit called Bikes n Wines, to go on a...you guessed it...bike and wine tour!  So, admin done, dinner for 4 prepped, we drove off to Stellenbosch to meet Linda our bike Asara Wine Estate.  Linda was, contrary to what you might be thinking, a super cool black guy from the Xhosa tribe - whose dialect includes clicks and tock sounds.  (He tried teaching us, but it's flippin' impossible!)  Another New York honeymooning couple made up our group and the 5 of us set off on our mountain bikes.  Thankfully it was almost all on dirt tracks and only 3 hills, thus I didn't have too much opportunity to complain (although I did my best!).  We learnt about the vines, wine making, harvest, history of the vineyard, employment, settlement of the valley and loads more.  And we tasted a few wines, again.  Actually it really was mostly biking and very little drinking, despite what you are thinking.

Dinner back at the ranch with Paula and Peter - great to have a quiet evening with just the 4 of us and the dogs.  Tomorrow Peter gets up at 4am for his triathlon and it's our last day here, so we'd better make the most of it.
Location: Franschhoek, 7690, South Africa

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