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.