Wine tasting and stroking cheetahs in Stellenbosch, a whale fest in Hermanus and sleeping in the car in Simons Town. The non-stop adventure continues.
November 2002
What struck me when I first set eyes on Cape Town was the city’s stunning setting. Table Mountain is all imposing – the city is situated on the coast, nestled beneath the mountain. We headed out west, along the scenic coastal road through Camps Bay, Hout Bay and Chapmans Peak. The route is peppered with viewpoints bathed in glorious sunshine. The sheer cliffs, sparkling pristine green sea, rolling surf and flashes of colour from wild flowers gave the area an untouched feel.
Simons Town, on the east side of the Cape Peninsula, is home to The Boulders and thousands of African penguins (formerly known as ‘jackass penguins’). The kind lady at the Cape Town tourist office had assured us that Simons Town was sheltered from the wind. It came as a shock, when on arrival at Oatlands Holiday Village, the car door was almost blown off its hinges. We appraised a couple of camping terraces before deciding on a spot bordered by trees that would shield us from the elements. I must admit I was pretty dubious about pitching the tent, but Tom retorted that I had no sense of adventure.
Day-trippers are brought in by the coach load to share their allotted twenty minutes with the penguins, making the boardwalk over the beach almost impassable, as they click away on their cameras and elbow each other out of the way. To avoid the frenzy, we walked a further fifty metres to an empty beach where we were free to observe the penguins unmolested.
Back at prestigious ‘Oatlands’, we attempted to take a shower only to find abysmal water pressure and no hot water. The scullery, the only place we could escape the wind, was a dumping ground for broken fridges, a wooden door labelled ‘staff’, a rusty washing machine and ant infested sinks. When we tried to sleep in our tent, the wind pounded the sides into the ground, compressing the material into shapes a contortionist would find hard to match. Unable to sleep inside, we abandoned our tent for the relative safety of our car and prayed that the tent would not become airborne.
The wind howled through the night yet somehow the tent remained pegged down. We emerged from the car stiff from our cramped sleeping positions and had great fun packing the tent away in the gale.
By 7:00am, we were at the entrance to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve. We set off on a scenic walk through the legendary Cape fynbos recognised as one of the world’s six Floral Kingdoms. The most colourful and abundant fynbos are the protea, the national flower of South Africa. I’m no Charlie Dimmock but even I appreciated this unique environment. My favourite was the Leucospermum Conocarpodendron, a tree protea with golden yellow pincushion flowers.
One of the reasons for reaching the Nature Reserve early is to avoid the onslaught of day-trippers. There are some roads in the park where coaches are prohibited, but the road to Cape Point is not one of them. If you want to enjoy Cape Point in peace, then you need to be an early riser. It is a 700 metre climb to the lighthouse where our efforts were rewarded by a fresh, fierce wind that almost knocked us off our feet, sucking the air from our lungs. For the lazy, there is the Flying Dutchman, a funicular railway that does the hard work for you.
At the Cape of Good Hope, two of the earth’s most contrasting currents collide – the cold, slow moving Benguela Current from the Antarctic and the warm, fast flowing Agulhas from the equator. The combination of currents and winds together with large reefs and submerged rocks has proved too hazardous for many ships over the last 500 years. Cape Point was first sighted in 1488.
To escape the ferocious wind, we visited Stellenbosch, the second oldest town in South Africa. Delightful and relaxed, it is a pleasant place to chill out for a couple of days and sample as many wines as possible. Filled with wide, oak-lined avenues and graceful examples of Cape Dutch architecture, the other major attraction is the high concentration of wineries – 106 cellars within a 25km radius.
For R12, we toured the Bergkelder, a winery that is just a short walk from the town centre. Guided tours are conducted that cover the wine making process and include a tasting. This cellar produces over ten million litres of wine every year.
We learnt that oak barrels are one of the major expenses for a winery – French or American oak is favoured as South African oak is far too soft. Wine can be matured in barrels for up to six years; at this point the maximum saturation level in the oak has been reached and the barrels are reused for brandy. Nearly all red wines are oaked but many whites are produced unoaked and must be consumed within one year of purchase. The ghostly quiet of the labyrinth of wine cellars was quite unnerving. We were led through the cellars where the constant temperature of 10-15�C and 85% humidity provide the ideal environment for storing and maturing wine.
After our unconventional wine tasting where we were told to “drink up”, we headed to another winery, the Spier Estate. This time, we hadn’t come to sample the alcohol, we were hoping to stroke cheetahs at the Cheetah Outreach.
This conservation project was established to combat the problems faced by cheetahs in the wild. The main objective was to promote the cheetah’s plight by introducing tame cheetahs as ambassadors to the public. The funds raised assist the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) in protecting cheetahs and educating the public. There are only an estimated 15,000 left in the wild and worrying statistics show that they could be extinct in the next ten to fifteen years. The main threat to their survival is farmers who kill cheetahs to protect their livestock. By introducing non-lethal predator controls i.e. placement of guard dogs on farmland, cheetahs are deterred from killing livestock.
Less-than-threatening cheetahs
Three six-month-old cheetah cubs were happily snoozing in their enclosure after their boisterous exertions that involved chasing a plastic ball. We were offered the chance of intruding into their territory to stroke them. I felt far more comfortable in the company of the cheetah cubs than with the lions who were far more threatening. We stroked their soft, cuddly fur and tickled their tummies but the experience was far too hurried due to a long queue of tourists waiting impatiently outside the enclosure.
Next destination was Hermanus; a mecca for backpackers as its name is synonymous with whale watching. Originally a fishing village, it now thrives on day-trippers staring through binoculars from the cliff paths, hoping for a sighting of Southern Right whales. Whale watching season runs from July to November so it wasn’t unusual to spot six whales in the bay close to the shoreline, lobtailing and basking. The Southern Right whale derives its name from early whalers who regarded it as the ‘right’ whale to hunt because it was slow enough for rowing boats to follow, floated when dead and yielded much oil and baleen (whale bone). Almost hunted to extinction (12,000 were killed between 1790 to 1825), 5000 survive today.
Lunch was dreamy calamari strips that almost melted in my mouth while I was treated to a spectacular display of whales breaching in the bay. A breach involves a whale hurling itself upwards and landing on its back with a tremendous splash. Not a bad way to end the day.
