So once again, for what feels like the millionth time on this trip we woke up early with the point of packing the bags, packing the car, and moving our things to yet another accommodation. Jenny's friend Alice arrived from Australia this afternoon and is staying at the same hotel as JD and Charlotte. Our plan was to move our bags to JDs room so they could be later moved to Alice's room where we would be staying tonight once she arrived. Complicated I know.
Chantel and Jenny however were off to the spa this morning for their fish pedicure treatment they were unable to get a few weeks ago. They departed Chantel's flat at 8:30 and Lesley and I left soon after to take the bags across town. When we arrived at the hotel we went to JD and Charlottes room to find no one there. We instead found them at breakfast where we joined them for a cup of coffee and tea before transferring our mountain of bags into their room. Chantel and Jenny arrived shortly after and we all piled into the land rover for our trip up to Warwick.
Chantel had arranged this trip to Warwick vineyard a few weeks ago and we were all looking forward to a relaxing day of food and wine. The vineyard is located in stellanbosh, one of the premiere wine making areas of South Africa and so promised to be nothing short of amazing. Because Jenny had been doing most of the designated driving so far it was my turn to drive and let her enjoy as much wine as humanly possible. We arrived and had a look around the commercial area of the vineyard. We met up with Dries and Nicola as well as Karl.
The first thing we did at Warwick was a wine safari. We were put into an open sided land rover, and bumped our way up through the vineyards to a point at the very top of the hill, overlooking the entire valley. Our guide was fascinating, explaining about old vines and new vines, the period of time a vine is viable for to make wine and the different soil matching for the different types of wine. We then tasted about 8 different wines, three whites and five reds. My favourite was the Oaked Chardonnay, and the 2005 vintage red, yum!!
We were bumped back to the main part of the vineyard, and were lead to our picnic lunch pod, called the three cape ladies. We ordered two bottles of wine to have with our lunch, of four scrumptious picnic baskets to share between the 7 of us there. The baskets were divine, ciabatta, chutney, hams, cheeses, tomato and pesto, biltong pâté and salad!! After our lunch we all sat on the grass up from our pod, just enjoying the sunshine. We had a lovely experience when one of the ladies from Warwick came very and explained the legend of the princess Cooniegunda, who fell in love with a commoner, and to be able to marry her the king set the commoner the seemingly impossible task of creating a cup that two people could drink from at the same time, but only one could hold it and not a drop could be spilled. It is a lady with a hollow dress, and a little cup on a swivel above her head that tilts perfectly so that two can drink from her at the same time. Because we are getting married, Dan and I got to do that,
We finished up our tasting at Warwick and drove back to Cape Town so that we could pick up Alice at the airport. It took a while to figure out if she would be coming in on an international or domestic flight, once we sorted that issue we all greeted Alice and headed off to pick up her rental car. I had great fun standing on the place above the wheels whilst careening down the incline towards car rentals, that takes you under the road. There were free expressos, and I managed to knock JD's hand and spill his all over his shirt :D
Even though both of our cars had sat navs, we decided to follow Alice's car as Chantel was travelling with her and is well aquatinted with Cape Towns layout. What we did not expect was that Alice may forget we were following her and drive quite fast, and that Chantel would forgot to tell Alice when to turn off! We ended up losing them along the way but took JD and Charlotte the scenic route back to the hotel, so all was not lost :)
After locating Alice's room, the boys used the trolley out front of the hotel to move all our bags to Alice's room, where we were to stay for the night. Our plans changed slight'y at this point, and instead of Taking taxis to Blue Peter for pizzas and drinks, we decided to drive there for the pizza and a drink and drive back, and drink at the bar. We shared the chicken and bacon pizzas that I invented last time, and were sitting at the tables this time, so got table service, albeit a bit slow, and were close to the gas heaters. Dan and I got each other confused about who was to drive the car back from Blue Peter, ut Luckly he had just had the one beer whilst I had had two long island ice teas! Guess who drove :) Thanks Dan!
Back at the hotel mum went to sleep straight away, and Alice and I joined JD, Charltte and Dan at the bar for a drink, I had another one of those frozen strawberry margaritas! I was pretty tired afterwards so got Dan to walk me back to the room so I could go to bed, but also so he had keys to get in later on. Much much later, read 2:45am, Dan stumbled to bed :D
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