7: Kaapstad

2.04.2016 – 2.04.2016 semi-overcast 20 °C

DSC_0120Up relatively early and headed out of Stellenbosch for the cute Huguenot town of Franschhoek. Our route enabled us to take a good look at Stellenbosch itself. Beautiful old town, gorgeous university and some houses that scream money… Certainly no poor people living in this town itself (the township outside Stellenbosch.. well.. that’s a different story). I find the concept of townships interesting~ you see them everywhere you go. A km of so outside the town itself is the “township”, very recognisable with 5ish by 10ish m boxes with roofs, laid out right next to each other. Some townships are actually fairly new (besser brick and corrugated iron) others are iron cobbled together with timber, with wire, with plastic sheeting to make a home. According to one local we met the other day a good portion are out of work here in SA (Dr Google tells me it is over a qtr of the adult population are out of work). It feels right, because it isn’t uncommon to enter a town and see people standing everywhere or sitting on the gutters~ enterprising people here are “parking attendants”.. ie they “help” you park your car (and reverse out when you leave) and then “watch” your car to ensure it doesn’t get stolen~ expecting a tip when you leave. They are typified by yellow “hi-vis” flack jackets and a hat and in most cases have taken it upon themselves to earn some money by doing this. Gotta give it to them for trying!

Anyway back to Franschhoek. The French inspired town is 10 mins or so outside of Stellenbosch, another drive past the endless numbers of wineries. Franschhoek (Franz- takes too long to type correctly), was first founded in the late 1600s by a group of families (20 or so) who were given licenses by the Dutch East India company to come and farm the land outside of Stellenbosch. They were French Protestants who had left France (50 odd years earlier) due to persecution from the Catholic French kings who decided to convert everyone back to Catholicism. The Flemish part of modern day Belgium (it was part of the Dutch Orange kingdom) allowed in many of these refugees. Over time some of these refugees left Europe for the English speaking countries including the colonies, and some who stayed in Holland decided to head for the Cape. Hence the Huguenot town of Franz.  (If you’ve been one of my readers for many years you will have come across the Huguenots before~  in the UK, US and Canada)

We spent an hour or so wandering around the memorial and museum to the early settlers before deciding we really needed to experience some wine in a winery so headed into town to find an appropriate one. Originally, the guide book had given us the idea of catching the “tram” around the wineries but after working out it was going to take anywhere from 2 to 7hrs to do the trip we decided to ditch the tram and drive to one ourselves. We headed out to Leapords Leap (recommended by good ole Lonely Planet) and we were not disappointed.

A huge, big, open, modern space. Very well-lit with natural light, huge roaring fire + lounge chairs at one end (which btw is necessary today as the wind is blowing very cold) , big kitchen at the other and in between plenty of lunch seating and of course wine tasting. We all sat up and tested 5 different grape varieties for the cost of $2.50. Bought four bottles of wine (about $15 in total) before heading back out into the cold and onwards to Cape Town. Gotta love cheap, great wine!

DSC_0139My turn to drive! We’ve been hooning around in an Audi for the past 6 days and I decided that if I didn’t drive into Cape Town today there is a good chance I might miss out on the chance so my turn to take the wheel (Dad’s to navigate). We arrived in Cape Town just after 1pm. Not the best timing because we can’t enter our flat til 2. So we dumped the car and went for a walk around the downtown itself. Not the most beautiful down town I’ve seen. Quite dirty and filled to over flowing with people. After finding Maccas for lunch (we keep teasing Mum that she must be hankering for a Filet o Fish~ which we couldn’t get for her!) we headed back to the apt to get ourselves organised and get some much needed washing into the machine.

DSC_0138Straight after getting ourselves setup we decided to head up to Table Mt. Well, that was the plan… On arrival the line up was pretty lengthy so we decided to go for a drive over to its sister Signal Mt to watch the hang gliders in action. Specky views from the top of Signal Mt (especially of Table Mt itself). Dad tried hard to get a hang gliding ride but we think they must have had bookings because although he kept asking no-one really wanted to take his money! Was still pretty special to watch all of these hang gliders take off from the side of the mountain and head down to the sea front. We decided to join the hang gliders and spent the rest of the afternoon driving around the sea front, oohing and aahing at the super mansions that dot the side of the hills overlooking the ocean. Cape Town is not a poor city!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *