DAY 7 - Stellenbosch

Today is our day of visiting wineries.

I had printed out the Wine Routes map from this website but our hotel also had a better, enlarged copy of it.
www.wineroute.co.za/maps.asp

But I'm glad I did print it out becuase it helped us figure out in advance the distance between wineries and what area we should concentrate on.

Wineries we ended up visiting:

Vergelegen
You pay a small cost to enter this wine estate. R5/person. The estate is more like a park, with walking trails, gardens and several restaurants.

We tasted:
2007 White Blend
2/3 Semillon and 1/3 Sauvignon Blanc "Wine of the Year" in the 2007 Platter's SA Wine Guide
2005 Cabernet Sauvignon

Morgenster
Wine (only reds) and olive/olive oil tasting
Quite possibly our favorite tasting room. Very knowledgeable and welcoming staff. There’s also a beautiful outdoor terrace covered in grape vines with a gorgeous view of the surrounding area. So nice and relaxing!
Bordeaux-style reds. Fabulous olive oil (bought and am using carefully)

We tasted:
Tosca 2006 Italian Collection
Morgernster 2006
Morgenster Lourens River Valley 2006

Extra virgin olive oil
Lemon enhanced olive oil
White truffle olive oil
Black & green olives
Olive paste

Blaauklippen
The interior of this winery is charming in an old-attic sort of way. It could not have been more different from the other two places we had just visited. We came to taste their Zinfandel which we liked very much. But of course we were easily persuaded to try some others. Again, very helpful and knowledgeable staff.

Initially we thought we would have time to visit about 5 wineries before having a late lunch. But we hadn't counted on enjoying each place so much. The staff working there were so fun to talk to and we learned a lot about South African wine from them, the grounds at Vergelegen was so beautiful to walk around, and of course just sitting at Morgenster on their terrace, enjoying the sun while sipping a lovely red was just the best way to while away the time.

Note: My husband was driving so he would just taste and then spit out (not considered rude at wineries).

Then it was the beautiful drive from Stellenbosch to Franschhoek. Every corner unveils the most magnificent landscape. Rolling hills and vineyards in beautiful autumn colors. We passed Tokara Winery and with another day, we would certainly have visited there too. The drive took about 45 minutes from Blaauklippen to Franschhoek, although Bread & Wine is located before one enters the cute little town. So we missed the sign for Moreson Winery and went too far but not a problem. We turned around and found the teeny tiny sign for Bread & Wine which one sees only if truly looking for it.


Lunch at Bread & Wine
Moreson Wine Farm
Happy Valley Roa
Franschhoek
021-876 3692/4004


Moreson Winery is set back from the main road (Huguenot Road, R45) about a kilometer amidst lemon orchards and vineyards. Huge bowls of healthy looking bright yellow lemons were adorning the tables. Our server informed us that they had picked the first harvest of lemons the previous weekend. Although it had turned a little overcast, we chose to sit outside on the alfresco deck. A lovely way to enjoy yet another crisp autumn afternoon in the Winelands. The homemade charcuterie plate comes highly recommended. That, along with the most sumptuous basket of bread (including a chewy ciabatta style bread stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes and feta cheese still warm from the oven which I am still dreaming about) was a perfect accompaniment to a cool glass of Moreson Chenin Blanc.

Risotto with truffles, peas and Auriccho cheese

Pan roasted gemsbok with wild mushrooms, celery and foie gras

What we ordered with our meal:
Moreson Chenin Blanc
Pinehurst Cabernet Sauvignon
Moreson Cuvee Cape

This restaurant also seems very popular and when we arrived around 2 pm without reservations, we were very fortunate to be seated at a table that had just opened up. There is also a cute little grocer next to the restaurant selling various kind of home-made jams, breads and Pinehurst and Moreson wines.

After our long, lazy lunch we drove to the little town of Franschhoek and did a little shopping/browsing before heading back to Stellenbosch.

We found Franschhoek on a Sunday had a lot of shops open and the little town was pretty buzzy. It’s cute in a country village sort of way. I can understand why many people are charmed by this place. I could picture myself staying here as well.

We drove back to the hotel in time for another South African sunset. A repeat -- albeit a wonderful repeat --- of the night before. Sunset with wine glasses in our hands. Chatting, reading, relaxing and snacking. We did go to the dining room of the hotel at one point to sit in front of their very cozy fireplace and have my favorite on this trip, an Amarula on the rocks and DH had something else.

@ Kavey - Thanks for bringing that out! Good point.

@ Gabrielle - Many thanks for reading along. You are going to have a wonderful time. We were initially discouraged when we were watching the weather for Cape Town the week before we left. But it completely changed and was wonderful for most of our stay. So you never know! Then again, because the weather was so beautiful we didn't end up doing too many indoor activities and Cape Town has plenty of nice options for rainy days. But still... let's hope for great weather for you!

DAY 8 & 9 Magaliesberg

Since we had chosen to fly to Lanseria airport in Jo’burg, our choices were a bit limited in terms of flights available. Fortunately Kulula has two flights a day flying Cape Town to Lanseria (Jo’burg). It was a choice of 8:50 am or 2:00 pm. Easy.

The 2:00 pm flight allowed us plenty of time in the morning to enjoy our breakfast, pack up and linger a bit. We did not want to leave!!

The day before I had asked how long it would take to drive to the airport for that flight time. They suggested that 45 minutes would be plenty of time (no traffic). Since we were flying domestic, we decided that being at least one hour before our flight was probably fine. But we still had to drop off our car rental before doing that. Sadly, after all that organizing, when we got to the airport we discovered that our flight was delayed.

Cape Town airport, at least the domestic area, is a bit of a mess at the moment. The waiting area after security is essentially a large white tent. It was fairly crowded on this Monday and was very hot under the tent.

Finally, our flight was called and we boarded the bus which taxied us to our plane.

The flight on Kulula was pretty comfortable, probably because I had the aisle seat and made DH sit in the middle of the 3-3 configuration. Food and beverages were sold onboard. We were pleased to arrive in Jo’burg only about 20 minutes later than scheduled.

We had arranged airport transfer with our hotel in Maropeng. As we drove away from Lanseria Airport, we definitely noticed a totally different sort of landscape in this part of the country. Flat, golden and a wide open sort of beauty.

The drive to Maropeng Hotel took about 45 minutes. It was quite a nice, scenic drive and as we got closer to Magaliesberg, we kept noticing how, blue and massive the sky looked. The clouds were thin streaks of white across the sky. So beautiful!

Maropeng Hotel
Situated on the R400, just off the R563 Hekpoort road
Tel: +27 (0) 14 577 9100
[email protected]
http://www.maropeng.co.za/index.php/...ng/directions/

This is a nice, new modern hotel in a location that makes one imagine that they could quite possibly be the only ones left on this planet. It’s just you, the huge fields of shiny golden tall blades of glass and the big blue sky.

Check-in was painfully slow and we were a bit worried whether this was a bad sign for the rest of our stay. Thankfully we found a copy of our booking confirmation because the girl at the front swore that she could not find it. Hmm… considering we had booked the airport transfer with the hotel and they were the ones who had dropped us off, one would think that the check-in would be the smoothest possible.

Our room was super spacious (after staying at Derwent House in Cape Town, we began to really appreciate size and space) and nicely done but was not as nice as our room at Majeka House. We had an outdoor terrace area which was a nice place to sit and have a sundowner during our stay. We also became a little bit addicted to having a glass of Amarula on the rocks every night as a nightcap. For convenience, we also ended up eating dinners at the restaurant there.

During this segment of our trip, this is what we did:

Sterkfontein Cave
Crade of Humankind - Maropeng
Hot air ballooning
Lion Park

Visits to the Cave and Cradle were included in our package with the hotel (otherwise R150 for both). I think if one were keen on geology or archeaology this would be a very interesting visit. I hate being underground (especially when it's also cold and damp) so the visit to the Caves felt a bit too claustrophobic for me. However, my husband loved it and later enjoyed the various displays of rare hominid fossils extracted from this area, some dating back more than 3-million years.

The hot air balloon ride was booked through our hotel as well. But we highly recommend this company. Super safe and reliable.

http://www.air-ventures.co.za/

Our one hour ride at sunrise will remain one our best memories as long as we live. Besides us and the pilot, there were six others, including a South African couple (wife, a travel agent) and four guys from Tokyo in the marketing/media industry who were doing a scouting trip in preparation for World Cup 2010. They were all very nice and the pilot was great as well. The landscape was awesome but the balloon ride also offered some amazing sightings as well. As we drifted along where the wind took us, we saw zebras, gemsboks and buffalos. SO COOL!!! It was so quiet and serene as we floated along. The sky went from a pinky-orange to bright blue by the time we touched down again. We celebrated by sipping champagne with the others! (they also provided coffee and tea, even Amarula when we arrived as we watched them prepare the balloon for take-off)

Definitely bring binoculars. We had ours and we were so glad. Oh and an extra set of batteries for the camera.

We were back at the hotel by 10 am. We had also arranged with Tempest Car Rental to have our car dropped off at Maropeng (extra fee). Knowing NOW how easy the drive from Lanseria to Magaliesberg would have been, we should have just picked up the car at the airport. But somehow the idea of driving from Jo'burg to Magaliesberg before we had a chance to get our bearings intimidated me, and my husband was fine with just booking an airport transfer with the hotel.

Much to our chagrin, Tempest was late dropping off the car. I had asked the front desk to call them at 9 am (we would still be out on the balloon ride) to confirm the 10 am drop-off and also ask them to include a road map of the area if they had one. When we got back, we asked the girl if she had called and she said, yes they are coming 10 am but they do not have a map. At 11 am they finally showed up and dropped off the VW Polo (again) but this time a 4 door hatchbook instead of a sedan like we had in Cape Town. I was a bit miffed that a car rental company would not provide a road map. But we managed to find one at a gas station on the way to the Lion Park.

Lion Park

It was a toss-up between visiting the Lion Park vs. the Rhino & Lion Park. But when a friend told me that the Lion Park has a little area where you can actually touch and cuddle a lion cub, I knew I wanted to go there.

It was very exciting being up so close to a lion cub. They were all between 4-6 months and were already pretty big. They were too big to hold and cuddle but it was so cool being able to pet them. Their hair is a lot more coarse than I had imagined. By the time we got there, it was around 1:30 pm (after a quick lunch on the way), so they were all napping and/or lying down. The sign said, "maximum 2 minutes" but because we were there during the weekday and it was so quiet, the "ranger" let us stay for about 5-7 minutes. Pretty cool! The "ranger" obviously loved them very much and told us which ones were mischevious, which ones are playful, etc.

Later, we did a self-drive around the park. We got to see the rare white lions, they are more of a creamy color. Beautiful!

DAY 10 & 11 Pilanesberg National Park

Pilanesberg National Park is only 50,000 hectares (compared to Kruger's 2 million hectares) but has a good population of the Big Five (black & white rhinos, lions, leopards, elephants and buffalos). Being a (now extinct) volcanic crater, the park boasts an interesting variety of vegetation and rock formations.

Our route: coming from the Cradle of Humandkind, we drove along R512 and once we got to the other side of Hartbeespoort Dam (stopping to look at some of the arts and crafts being sold here) we took R104 and then R565 all the way to Pilanesberg. Roads are fairly well marked but our road map was invaluable. The drive took almost two hours. It was quite a pretty drive, as we passed fields and fields of bright yellow sunflowers. There were plenty of little towns along the way to fill up on gas or snacks.

Ivory Tree Lodge
We knew we wanted to stay in the park vs. next door at Sun City (with heaps of high-end options). Ivory Tree Lodge is located on the north-east area of the park. I loved our room and the beautiful view facing the park. It’s not the highest end here (Tshukudu gets that title) but it’s very comfortable and includes two game drives a day (at sunrise and at sunset). They also have a female guide which I thought was pretty cool.

Ivory Tree was perfect for what we wanted. Meals were included and they were pretty homey but good. Having lunch one day with a cold beer while watching a couple of warhogs sleeping, a family of giraffe eating while a herd of antelopes ran by felt pretty special.

This is what we ended up seeing during our stay:

Buffalos
Elephants - a herd of them at a watering hole numbering maybe 20. We were at a hide across the water from them and they came, drank and were gone in a matter of 15 minutes. So glad to have caught that. There were several baby elephants, so cute!
Gemsbok
Giraffes - saw eight of them together. Elegant and graceful creatures.
Hippos
Impalas
Lions - a pride of lionesses numbering five was a highlight. Saw several single sightings as well.
Black rhinos
Springboks
Warthogs
Blue Wildebeests
Zebras

Lovely, relaxing time. Being within driving distance to Jo'burg was a big plus for us because of time and budget constraints. Loved Ivory Tree!!!

Final segment coming up: Johannesburg

Sounds like an awesome trip. I'm really glad. It's also my "mission in life to get more people to travel to South Africa" (but not so many that it's ruined!). Thanks for all the detail. Very interesting.

DAY 13 & 14 Johannesburg

Leaving Ivory Tree and Pilanesberg was sad as we had had such a nice, relaxing time. But it was time for the last bit of our SA journey: Johannesburg.

The drive from Pilanesberg to Sandton (in the north of Jo'burg) took a lot longer than we had anticipated. 3 hours vs. 2 hours. No idea why, there was little traffic and the roads were good.

Thanks to our South Africa road map, we were able to navigate problem-free into the city and pulled up to the Holiday Inn Sandton around 5 pm. My first choice was to stay in the Rosebank area but many reviews on Tripadvisor cited terrible construction noise and traffic so that put me off. Then in an effort to cut costs, we decided to look at what options we had in using points we had. No Starwood hotels (with the exception of the Sheraton in Pretoria which would be too far for us) within the city so we decided to use our Priority points and I was just about to book the Intercontinental Sandton but happened to check Pointbreaks and saw that the Holiday Inn Sandton was going for 5000 pts/night (compared to Intercontinental's 30K/night). A deal! It also allowed me to book an executive room so I was elated.

Fast forward to our arrival at the HI Sandton. The lobby is quite easily the most attractive one I have ever seen at a Holiday Inn (my expectations were quite low). Huge, high-backed chairs and sofas in dark purples and blue facing several fireplaces.

So we head on over to the check-in counter. She confirmed and then re-confirmed our reservation but then my husband said, "you just said yes to her confirming we were paying one night with points and one point on pay". What?!?!! Sure enough when she repeated it to me, that was her understanding. Fortunately I had printed out the reservation confirmations. "Please wait here". Apparently she had to call the duty manager to confirm and re-confirm. There was much back and forth between her and the manager. Finally she confirmed that I was right and the confirmation in my hand was accurate. Then she informs us that our room was not ready and would not be be ready for another hour. I was ready to strangle her. Fortunately, my husband is calm and in his nicest voice asks if there is any other room we could have right away. The answer is no. But the hour was mysteriously reduced down to 30 minutes. Fine. We said we would walk around a bit, as we had spotted a mall of some sort next door. We went next door to the Village Walk but didn't really see anything particularly interesting. There is a Pick'n'Pay supermarket and a liquor store which is handy.

After a half hour we went back to the hotel and our room was ready. We had the executive room but besides the huge bathroom, I'm not really sure it deserves to be termed "executive". Just out of curiosity I checked the rates and it goes for R 3250/night for the advance purchase rate. Would be sadly disappointed if we had paid that price. It is a corner room but the two windows in the corner are pretty tiny and sort of designed in an awkward way. We had to pay for wifi and I seem to recall thinking it was quite pricey.

In terms of location, it is in a nice quiet neighborhood and we always felt quite safe. It is within walking distance to Nelson Mandela Square as well as Sandton City. The Radisson Blu is right across the street.

This is where we went for dinner (about a five minute drive from our hotel):

Thomas Maxwell Bistro
Shop 8, 140 11th Street
Parkmore
+27 11 784 1575
http://www.thomasmaxwell.co.za/

Starter to share: mussels in garlic and lemon sauce

Main:
DH - Wasabi rump medium rare (this dish got a thumbs up from the meat lover in the family)
Me - Fishcakes of yellowtail and salmon with whole grain mustard and cointreau sauce over parmesan and arugula (divine!)

We later shared a cheese plate. With a bottle of pinot noir that we shared the total bill was R 450 + tip. Highly recommend!

An absolutely amazing meal! I loved the simple, hardworking decor of the restaurant.


On our first and final full day of Johannesburg we booked ourselves to spend the morning at the Apartheid Museum.

http://www.apartheidmuseum.org/

This museum is a must-see for a visit to S. Africa. It's sad and I shed more than a few tears that day but it was a incredible way to learn about this tragic chapter of modern history. It was shocking to me that it had been happening during my lifetime. 15 years ago is not that long of a time period. Growing up I had of course heard the name Nelson Mandela and knew a little about his background and experiences, but the exhibit really educated me on what an amazing man he is! We were glad we hadn't planned anything else that day. It was truly an emotional day. I would suggest planning to spend at least 2.5 hours but we easily spent more than than.

Tempest Car Rental has an office at Village Walk next door to the HI Sandton so after our visit to the apartheid museum we were able to drop off the rental and walk back to our hotel. Super easy and convenient. Later, we walked to Nelson Mandela Square for a late lunch. With all of the wonderful choices nearby, I am a bit ashamed to confess that we ended up at Mugg & Bean coffee shop at Sandton City for cappuccinos and cake.

The weather in Jo'burg was great! Sunny with blue skies and in the mid 70's F. Early mornings and evenings were chilly though between 50-60F. But still very pleasant.

Exclusive Books at Sandton City had some of the best selection of coffee table books, maps, novels, travel guides for Africa that I have ever seen!

Since we had a early flight the next day, we ordered room service (nothing special, just okay) and had a bottle of Simonsig Shiraz (excellent for something like R30 from the wine shop at Village Walk) while we packed and watched satellite TV.

We booked the airport transfer with the hotel and the Land Rover was nice & roomy with plenty of space for our luggage.

So this ends my trip report. Any questions, please feel free to ask. Thank you for reading!

Thanks Emilyblue,

That was a wonderful trip report. I enjoyed every part of it. Loved all the detail on hotels, restaurants, activities, places of interest. It has really helped me focus on what I want to do on my trip, I just hope I get to enjoy SA as much as you did.

You´ve inspired me to write my own trip report on my return, let´s see how that goes.

With only 4 weeks planning, you did a fantastic job. Not only is a hair tie at the Cape of Good Hope needed, but I'd suggest ear muffs. Or at least a headband.

I wonder what the future of a club footed penguin is.

Hope your new job contributes to your dream of a next trip.