The first thing Dan and I needed to do this morning was clear up the rest of our things from the venue. Sharon and Steve very kindly came along with us, and helped to organise all of Trendy Decors items onto one table for collection, and gather up the items that were ours to keep. We also took the remainder of the cake and all the desserts, as we didn't want them to go to waste! The brownies were to die for, I'm so glad there were some left :D We left three of the vases with Simone and Nick, who are going to use them for a fundraising rhino awareness function on Friday that they host every year, which is fantastic! Dan's parents went back to their cottage because they had already had breakfast. Dan and i spotted Chris about to leave for breakfast, so we offered him a lift and headed to Waverly Hills to join the rest of the party for food.
We found out after arriving that Waverly Hills doesn't open until 10:00 so there had clearly been some confusion concerning the location of breakfast. We phoned Lesley and found out that everyone was at Winterberg located 500 metres from Olive Rock. Everyone was there or their way, and Dan and I sat at a table with Chris to enjoy breakfast. I had wanted just a bacon sandwich, but the waiter came back and told me that I had to order something from the menu, so I ordered toast and bacon off one of the choices! Dan and Chris both enjoyed a full breakfast. Alice came back soon afterwards from having a look at the hospital in Ceres, and Chantel and her pare to arrived from Waverley Hills in time to say goodbye to everyone.
We had arranged to do a wine tasting tour in Stellenbosch today, and Mandy suggested we do the closer wine tour. Everyone was then in conflict about where to go and which wine tour to do, so I just waited in the car until it was time to program the sat nav :D They ended up deciding to go to Nederberg wine, so we all said goodbye to everyone and left for our first vineyard!
Jenny and I had never driven the land rover loaded with so many people and the car was certainly behaving differently. Earlier in the trip I had been pushing it to 120 km/hr but the car was now struggling to achieve 115. About 15 km shy of Paarl I mentioned to Jenny that the car felt a little shaky, possibly caused by the road conditions. She reassured me that I was overreacting and the car was fine. However once another 30 seconds had passed, and the steering wheel was rattling so much I could barely hold it, it was evident that something was wrong. We pulled over immediately to discover that the back right tire of the car had suffered a puncture and deflated. Because of the age of the tires once it deflated the tire wall failed and what used to be a tire now flapped and hung precariously from the wheel.
Luckly we had Duncan with us and before any of us could even process what happened he had already jacked the car up and was in the process of changing the tire. Duncan and his wife Helen had taken a similar honeymoon African adventure in a landrover, so we were very grateful to have his expertise in this situation! About five minutes after our tire had popped we watched the same thing happen to a truck, so whatever punctured our tire must have still been in the road. The truck driver is possibly luckier though, as he has two wheels per side and so could just set off straight away. Once our very own Super Duncan had replaced the tire we all set off again and drove a little slower for the rest of the journey.
As we arrived at Nederberg we were greeted with a glass of bubbly! They took us all into their tasting room and started off a 10 minute movie about the vineyard, and it seemed very commercial and not very informative about the way in which their wines are made differently which makes them unique, instead they used the word gentle about 500 times, and told us their wines were wonderful. To be fair, once the wine tasting started, their wines are delicious! Everyone enjoyed the tasting, Chris ended up buying a red called Two Centuries, and the rest of us bought their noble late harvest dessert wine, it is delicious!!
Dan and I didnt have to pay for our wine tasting as we each bought a R100 wine passport to use at the specific vineyards when we come back to Cape Town. We also got 20% off our two dessert wines! We set the sat nav to find the next winery on it's list, which was called Ashanti, only to find after a very long and bumpy ride that it did not do wine tastings! As we were leaving a group of guys told us to follow them to a place they thought did wine tastings. It was very confusing, because they put their hazards on at one right hand turn but they meant the next turn. Eventually we got to where we wanted to go, and Duncan went inside before we all disembarked to find out if they did wine tastings. Unfortunately not!! They did give us a map and advise on a vineyard not too far away that may do tastings, and a restaurant called Pappa Grappa.
The next place also ended up being closed, and as we were all swiftly losing our patience we headed straight for the restaurant and bypassed every sign for a vineyard we saw along the way. Once there and after having a look at the menu we decided to order Flammkuchen, what sounded like unlimited pizza. It turned out to be just a pizza base and bacon on top, and they were not unlimited as the menu made it sound like. Needless to say the five we ordered for the table of 14 was not nearly enough. Alice and I decided to then share a starter and a main, kudu carpaggio and springbok ravioli. The service was quite slow and everyone's food came out at different times as we were starving and couldn't wait. The last meal to be served was the ravioli, it didn't actually look like ravioli but was so so divine! The place had a grappa tasting room which I went into, and as no one was there I tried the grappa on the sly with Duncan and JD. We only tasted the Muscat one, which smelt great but tasted like methylated spirits!
Whilst everyone was sitting enjoying drinks in the sun, I went to find Dan at the car. He was severely stressed as the car key had come off of the fob!! He called a couple more people to help look for it and thankfully JD managed to find it in the car. Our drive home also became eventful, as the land rover then decided that she would not go over 60kms per hour. The engine was rattling an immense amount, and we all agreed that to stop the car would be a terrible decision, as we were unsure if she would start again! We limped our way back to Arum Lilly, and since Snolly was out of commission we sent Dad, JD and Steve into Ceres to get some food for the braai. They only just made it into the shop as it was closing, and came back with an assortment of delicious braai food. Everyone regrouped back at the cottages and we enjoyed one last meal together before Patricia, Toby, Alice, JD and Charlotte left the next morning.
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