Radiac's South African Adventure, Part 8
African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
Day Eight - Friday 22nd October
We started the day by heading into wine country, and for Boschendal wine farm in particular. As I think most people know, the cape is renowned for its fruit and wine production; wine production started here when the french, not content with contaminating one country, wandered through and decided that the flat land between the cape mountains would be a perfect place for vineyards. After a while the vineyards became infected and were sold off cheap to someone who replaced them all with fruit farms. In recent years many of them have had vineyards re-introduced, and Boschendal is one such farm.
First we were given a tour of the wine making facilities. We were in a group of 6, and purely by chance they were all from the UK, two from Badgers Mount (just around the corner from home), which we thought was quite a coincidence. We were shown where the grapes were loaded into the crusher, forced into the fermentation vats, and then loaded into barrels and stored until ready for bottling and sales.
After that it was on to the wine tasting - we got to choose 5 wines, plus any expensive ones at R6 each. I chose 5 normal ones, and the most expensive one on the list, which apparently had a forward nose of cassis and chocolate flavours. I was quite disappointed at the distinct lack of chocolatiness - although it was pleasant, I think I preferred the Le Pavillon Rouge 2003, a delightfully unassuming and affordable wine, which is youthful, ruby-coloured and packed with upfront berry fruit and aromas. And a particularly fine year too.
Having pointed out to Paul that buying 15 bottles of wine would be a bad plan since we're flying back, we went around the corner to Le Pique-Nique (still at Boschendal). As you may have guessed, this was a picnic, and it was absolutely brilliant. The french may not have manners or be house trained, but they sure do make a good picnic. We were given an absolutely enormous basket each; mine had a spinach, cream cheese and red pepper marmalade roulade to start, followed by snoek pate and cucumber and herbed feta hummus and an entire massive french bread to myself. Then there were three different types of cold meats with two different salads. Then there was cheese and biscuits before the ice cream and chunky berry sauce in a wafer basket. I ate nearly all of it, and felt very full. Paul had two bites, gave up, and got the man to pack it all up to take home. Wuss.
I waddled back to the car and we went back to the waterfront (by car all the way this time, woo!), and went into the aquarium. Before we left Johannesburg, we were given several lists of things to do, and the aquarium was on one somewhere. While I have been to aquariums before, I hadn't ever been to one in South Africa, so that made the whole experience a lot more worthwhile. No, I do it an injustice - it was very good. Cape Point is where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet - as a result on one side of the cape you have animals that like warm water, and on the other those that like cold, and the aquarium reflected this. There were lots of fish, eel-type things, a kelp forest, a large shark enclosure where you can actually go swimming with them - if I had had more time I assure you that I'd have been straight in, but unfortunately we were a bit pushed for time... what a shame...
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