Day 4. Stellenbosch
Whilst flicking through a magazine on the flight over to Cape Town, Ann-Marie found an advertisement about the Riebeek Olive Festival which was supposed to be occurring today.
The weather was crap, so there is nothing else to do but jump in
the car and drive towards Riebeek and at the same time see some of
the wine region around Stellenbosch.
We drove North East towards Riebeek West where we saw the first
of the many wineries, of course being the first on our journey we
had to stop by and sample some of the wines. After paying for
the glass deposit we were ushered down below the building to the
cellar below, where three girls were dispensing wine directly from
large vats.
The wine wasn't all that great, but we did find a nice bottle of
a Reserve Shiraz - this one we would keep until we're in Namibia
and camping for the first night in the desert.
Not long afterwards we ran into the olive festival officials who
were handing out pamphlets and giving directions to passing
traffic. Given that it was raining we were diverted to a
sealed road while the 4x4 were routed via a gravel road. I'm
still not sure if we missed anything important because of that
diversion.
The whole event was well organized and we stopped by a number of
wineries, all of which had a fantastic selection of not only wines,
but olives, various olive products, cheeses, BBQ's, live bands and
performances.
After that culinary and artistic infusion, we drove south
towards Stellenbosch, the oldest inland settlement and apparently
the most widely recognized name when it comes to South African
wine.
Stellenbosch is a university town, its streets are lined with
large leafy trees and the architecture of buildings is very much
typical of Holland back in the day. Granted, the majority of
the buildings have nothing in common with the colonial past, but
some of the older and still standing buildings do contribute to the
overall charm and antiquated feeling of this historic town.
A short walk around town made us think that perhaps it might be
worthwhile to drive further south towards Hermanus where we'd read
that migrating whales can be seen even at this time of the year
from the shore.
The road to Hermanus was fantastic and actually the end (or
beginning depending whether you start of finish in Cape Town) of
the famous Garden Route - we don't have time to do the full route
so this will have to do for now.
It did serve as a good introduction to the Garden Route and it
delivered on the spectacular experience, with winding roads cutting
their ways through picturesque hills.
I was thinking that this road would be great on a motorbike,
leaning into tight and fast corners, accelerating past the cars on
the hills and enjoying the views as the engine hummed away
underneath.
We arrived in Hermanus after dark, and unfortunately by that
time it was too late to see any of the whales (if indeed there were
any), but we did walk along the shore and explored an old fishing
harbour which at one point must have been used for whaling
operations. After dinner at a quiet Italian restaurant we
drove back to Cape Town.