The Winelands, Penguins and a Dassie.

No trip to South Africa would have been complete for us without a trip to the Winelands. We hired a funny little car (pictured below) which seemed to be very popular in South Africa. Every 10th car was one of these. It was very strange!

Driving out of Cape Town was really easy. And very similar to driving in Perth. It's a small city and there's not too much traffic which was fantastic. We stopped at a servo and I saw a leaflet for a winery called "Backsberg" which was opened by a guy called Sydney Back. Although he probably isn't related to me (he was Lithuanian) I couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit and buy some wine(and Brandy). We got a bottle of their pinotage which is a variety that was created in South Africa and also picked up some of the Sydney Back brandy. No family discount unfortunately. Here's a picture taken in their cellar door in Paarl.

After that we headed to Frankschhoek to check out some wineries there. The valley was originally settled by French Huegonot refugees and it was called 'Elephants Corner' but they changed it to 'French Corner' or Frankschhoek. There's no elephants there now though, just a million wineries called French names. haha.

Here's some pictures at Grande Provence in Frankschhoek. They had some fantastic wines, an amazing looking restaurant and an absolutely stunning cellar door. What a beautiful place. Oh yeah, and it's winter.

The next day we'd organised a wine tour so I could actually taste some of the wines. We were picked up in the morning by our guide Lucas from Tsiba Tsiba. As it was winter and there was a rugby match on, there was no one else on the tour. He thought this may have been a concern for us but we couldn't believe our luck! He took us to heaps of wineries and we had a fantastic day but I did end up very drunk and hungover by about 7pm.

We had lunch at one of the wineries and it was really good. I can't remember what we had but here are some pictures. I also picked up a tin of Zebra pate in the shop. We haven't eaten it yet but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to eat a Zebra. Anyway, we did manage to get it back through customs but it was a bit of an ordeal mainly because I lost the tin in my luggage. I had to get them to scan the bag and tell me where it was. I didn't want to get in trouble. I watch Border Security, I know how strict it is!

Anyway, here's our lunch...

Did I mention the food in SA is amazing!? And cheap!

This was the last winery we went to for the day. By this stage I was well and truly drunk and can't remember much besides the fact that I was patting a dog with ticks (Nate told me not to touch it. haha) and I met a guy with a moustache like Merv Hughes. They even called him Merv!

Here's the gorgeous winery...

The tick infested dog...

And my mate Merv...

The next day on our way back to Cape Town we went for a drive along the coast and stopped off at Simon's Town to say hi to the African penguins living there. They were quite cute but I must say, they were pretty smelly! Here's some pics...

These three were so cute. They were all following each other around.

And I also spotted a Dassie! We were told that they were on Table Mountain so we were looking out for them but never saw any. They reckon they are the closest living relative of an elephant but they look like a giant guinea pig so go figure!? Anyway, I would include the picture I took but it is fairly ordinary so you'll just have to look at the wikipedia article.

Cape Town

Ok, so we've been back in Perth a few weeks now but I just have to finish off the blog...

After a pretty long flight from London we arrived in Cape Town at about 7am. We went to check into our accommodation at Daddy Long Legs which is a boutique art hotel. All of the rooms are designed by a different artist. Nate chose the "Do Not Disturb" room which looked a bit like this...

It had karaoke and microphones everywhere. Even one in the bathroom and a glass panel so you can still see the TV and sing while you're in the shower. For some reason there was also a pair of binoculars in the cupboard!? There's some more pics here if you want to see...

Anyway, the room wasn't quite ready so we went to grab some breakfast. One look at the menu and I was feeling closer to Australia already. It was decidedly un-European, which after 2 months in Europe was a welcome change. But it was definitely South African (hello meat!). Here's Nate's cooked breakfast with Wart Hog ribs.

It was winter in South Africa but it was quite similar to Perth. We were actually lucky that it didn't rain until we were driving to the airport to leave. The first thing we decided to do was the obvious Table Mountain. We got the cable car up there which was pretty cool as it rotated on the way up so you can get a good view of the very impressive Cape Town. Anyway, on top of the mountain there was a bit of cloud that kept moving over, so one minute it was clear and the next you were in a cloud. It was kinda cool. Here's me with the cloud moving in. The next photo Nate took was completely white behind me. haha.

We actually got tickets for the open air tourist bus as it was fairly cheap and a good way of getting around Cape Town which is quite spread out. Here's a pic from the other side of the mountain. It's called Camps Bay.

And this is a picture of what the crazy wind has done to the trees. Amazing!

Anyway, back to the food. This is something we hadn't heard of before. It's called Bunny Chow. We went to this awesome little place on Long Street called The Quarter and they do gourmet Bunny Chow which is as basic as a curry in a 1/4 loaf of bread. The difference was that they had a huge range of choices and it was just mix and match. So you choose your filling and then choose a topping and an accompaniment. I think I had the mutton with raita on top and a mango chutney side. There was all sorts of options though. And heaps for vegetarians too. Surprisingly Cape Town is vegetarian heaven even though they love their meat. Every restaurant we went to had really good veggie options.

The next day was gorgeous so we took a trip out to Kirstenbosch botanical gardens. Here's a picture from the gardens with the mountain in the background. It's definitely a beautiful part of the world.

After that we did a township tour of one of the many shanty towns in Cape Town. Now the tour was pretty rubbish, but we did get to see how these people live which is quite eye opening. Most of these places now have electricity but they still don't have real houses. It's quite scary to see the size of these townships. I'm not sure how many people lived in this place but it was massive. Here's one of the shops.

And here's a picture showing the power lines and the corrugated iron houses.

We got taken to the church where they sell things that the local people make to earn money. They're very inventive in South Africa. No one is begging, they are all selling things, some of which are quite amazing. On the sides of the roads we saw tyre swings, bean bags, baby mobiles and all sorts of things made from scraps. Here's some chickens made from plastic bags. Cool hey?

And when I asked where all the cats were the guy said this was the only one! I could hardly believe it. So here it is, the only South African cat that I saw...

We went out for dinner to an African restaurant so we could try some of the local creatures. Here's our African carpaccio plate. That's crococile, kudu, springbok and ostrich. Kudu was hands down the best though.

I also had to try the potjie which is a South African stew. Yes, more meat!

And then we had the Malva pudding for dessert which is a typical South African dessert with a Dutch origin of course:) And it was very tasty, kind of like a sticky date pudding. Yum!

And one other thing that the Saffas are into is their brandy. Brandy and coke anyone? yuk. Anyway, here's Nate enjoying some local stuff.

More pics of South Africa here.