Oudtshroon

From Wilderness we headed north towards Oudtshroon, we decided to stop for a night on the way at a vineyard. We took the Montagu Pass, which was a slightly scary narrow cliff side gravel road. Luckily we didn’t meet many cars coming the other way, just a heard of baboons. This vineyard was a little different to the ones we had previously visited as it was up in the hills, additionally there was reasonably priced accommodation in converted labourer’s cottages. We settled into our cottage and headed to the tasting room. Here we were given seven different wines to try on a labelled mat which looked like some sort of wine chess.

After the tasting and a delicious cheese and meat platter we had a few glasses of our favourite, purchased a couple of bottles and headed back to our cottage. We both liked the Laatlammetjie wine which means “late lamb” in Afrikaans. This naturally sweet rose was actually made accidentally due to a lack of barrel space.

After a chilled evening we got up early to head to Cango Caves in Outdtshroon. Cango Caves is the largest show cave in South Africa, we chose to do the “insane adventure” tour which we were warned would involve crouching, crawling and confined spaces. Sounded good to us! The show cave was actually a lot more impressive than I thought it would be. There were two huge chambers with stunning stalactites, stalagmites and columns. The san people had been using the entrance of the cave for 1000s of years but would not go further than the daylight zone as they believed their ancestors resided deeper in the cave.

The first main chamber was discovered by a Dutch farmer in 1780, he was lowered on a rope into the chamber with just an oil lamp for light. The cave must look very different back then compared to us today with the artificial lighting, walkways and stairs.

We walked through the large bits of the cave for half an our before the adventurous part of our tour began. Here we had to do a few 100m of stooping before we entering a small chamber, the guide locked away everyone’s rucksacks as he said it was going to get tight! He was correct after climbing a steep metal ladder we negotiated the “Tunnel of Love” this was actually reasonably small (about my shoulder width). The lady behind me was a little unsure about this but after pointing out foot and hand holds she seemed to get along fine.

The next obstacle was the chimney, this combined small spaces with climbing, I could tell the lady behind me was getting increasingly nervous as the guide shoved tourist after tourist into a small hole and gave them twister like instructions. I said I would wait for her at the top, and again with a little persuasion and pushing she made it through, she remarked that this is not what she thought she would be doing in her sixties. The final obstacle was the letter box, this was a narrow slot with a slide (Olly did this head first) everyone made it through and we collected together before reversing the tunnel of love. This is the most actual caving we have ever done on a show cave tour!

Approximately 12 years ago a rather large lady went on the adventure tour, despite the guides advising against it she attempted to fit through the Tunnel of Love and got well and truly wedged. Unfortunately a group of tourists were in front of her and were trapped in the cave for 11 hours whilst the guides tried to remove her.

In the end some muscle relaxant injections and baby oil popped her out, after this incident plywood cut outs of the smaller cave sections are displayed in the reception to prevent a re-occurrence.

As well as caves Oudtshroon is famous as the worlds centre for ostrich farming. As we were there we thought we may as well have a look around one of the numerous farms. We did look into ostrich riding as I would be under the weight limit but in the end we decided that this was probably cruel.

Instead we stroked some ostriches, learnt that they have fingers, balanced on some eggs and got a neck massage (see photo below).

Wilderness

We left Nature’s Valley and headed for Wilderness, giving Tim (who we’d met the day before) a lift. He had to be at work at a hostel there that afternoon.

We dropped him off, headed to the launderette to put our clothes on for a wash, and then went to Fairy Knowle Backpackers where we were camping for the night. 

We’d planned to do the Kingfisher trail that afternoon, chatting with the person on reception we discovered there was the option to kayak up the river for about an hour, then walk for 30 minutes. This sounded much more interesting, so we opted for that.

The padding was fairly easy going, despite the sea kayak being less streamlined than the other river kayaks around. At the point the river got too shallow we pulled up onto the beach and continued on foot.

The wooden boardwalk ran, most of the way, to the top waterfalls. We stopped briefly here, before heading back. We had to make sure we made it back to the launderette on time to collect our clothes. 

The next day we went to the beach in the morning. Stopping at a café for some breakfast before setting off along the abandoned railway tracks to find Kaaikans Grotto.

As best we understood this cave had been converted into a hostel for the homeless. It was a little eccentric, to say the least, with a maze of rooms and corridors all decorated with bits and pieces of reclaimed odds & ends. A bit of an odd place, hard to do it justice with words. 

Cape Town

We headed back to Cape Town via Route 62, booked into our guest house and went to get some last groceries.

That evening we went on a sea kayaking tour with Kaskazi Kayaking. As the weather was predicted to get much windier we stayed locally in the bay, but we had lovely views of the city and of Lion's Head. The sea was super calm and we were even lucky enough to briefly see the fin of a sunfish (largest bony fish in the sea) before it dived into the blue.

Just as the sun set we paddled back to the beach.

The next morning we headed out to the Eagle's Nest vineyard with Olly's friends for some nice wine and a great cheese platter.

In the evening we met up with some more friends and hiked up Lion's Head for sunset. This was an amazing hike, in under an hour you have an amazing view of the city. We were lucky to witness the sea fog rolling in. To get to the top have to climb some ladders, chains and scramble up some rocks.

The view from the top was absolutely stunning. I thoroughly recommend hiking Lion's Head if you visit Cape Town.

After a rapid walk back down we headed to an Ethiopian restaurant that had been one of Olly's favourites when he was living there.

The traditional food involves lots of little dishes served on a large sourdough pancake, you eat with little strips of pancake. You can then eat the bottom pancake which has soaked up all the tasty juices.

In the morning we went for a look round South Africa's oldest lighthouse. The lighthouse has candy stripes which make it more visible as a day marker for shipping navigation amongst all the other high rise buildings. It is very odd to see a lighthouse in the centre of a city!

Unlike other lighthouses I have been to, here you can climb all the stairs, and actually look at the light!

After a lot of lighthouse excitement, we then headed to Franschoek for our last few days.

Franschhoek

With a couple of days before our flight home, we decided to head to Franschhoek for some wine tasting.  French Huguenot refugees settled here in the late 1600s bringing with them their wine making expertise.

To aid you in travelling between the various wineries while intoxicated there’s a hop-on hop-off tram service (and connecting buses). Anya had done a lot of research to select which to visit, while I was content to just a random selection.

By the end of the day we’d sampled 20 wines from 4 different vineyards; Babylonstoren, Backsberg, Vrede en Lust, and Plaisir De Merle. I’m not enough of a wine connoisseur to rank the individual wines but they were all very drinkable, and subsequently drunk!