A Stellenbosch Weekend

Saturday 5 - Sunday 6 February

To find Stellenbosch, first find Cape Town and then work your way East.

I write this one while sitting on Gillian's couch in Kleinmond, with the mountains watching over me through the front door, Rijk tapping on the computer nearby and the comforting sounds of Audrey and Gillian chatting in the sitting room next door. 

On Friday night (4th Feb, Stellenbosch) we ate dinner out on the stoop in Audrey's front garden.  Audrey (in her 80s) has a day bed set up outside and to the horror of her fellow village residents sleeps outside most summer nights.  Over the weekend I will finally pick up her book, written to her grandchildren, and learn the truth to the myths of my adventurous Great Aunt.

Audrey is the twin sister to Great Aunt Joy, whose paddock Jono and I were married in in October.  Hod is still a very active member of the community and busies herself finding suitable candidates for her tertiary education bursary, as well as many other projects.  In her youth she trained as a doctor and was the first female flying doctor in Australia.  Years later she moved to Rhodesia to work on a mission and she told me last night that I should skip ahead in her book to read about the surgical case with the hippo bite victim… I couldn't bare to skip ahead, so I'll have to tell you how that goes when I pick up the book again when we catch up with the family before the UK jaunt.  She has scaled mountains, mended wallabies, counselled HIV patients, been her sister's first passenger in a tiger moth, followed her instincts and her God and been an inspiration in what one person can achieve.

On the Saturday morning Hod had a birthday do to attend, but dropped us off in town on her way so that we could pick up the car.  Stellenbosch is a beautiful city, it is in the heart of the wine lands and it's plane tree lined streets and Cape Dutch buildings make for a very pleasant first stop on our South African adventure.  Before arriving there, I had told Jono that Stellenbosch was just like a bigger Manuka.  

Church Street and Hod's church.

We headed straight for Java cafe on Church St and from there onto some local handy crafts markets where I rebought a string of beads I'd gotten myself on my last visit, but had been confiscated by customs when I returned to Australia.


Next up, we hit the local organic markets which happened to be in the vineyard right next door to Hod's place and within easy walking distance.  It was like heaven's gates walking into that place!  There was a stall dedicated to mushrooms, a cocktail bar, beers, wines, cheeses, breads, biltong, cakes, olives, kebabs, crafts, clothes.  My favourite scene were a couple of guys held up at a bench.  On the table, a loaf of bread, a selection of cheeses and a bottle of wine… On the grass people were spread out picnicing their way through the morning.  It was bliss!

Chicken pie for dinner

Beer and

Kebab for lunch

Bliss

Happy Days

After a feast and a nap, Hod then took us for afternoon tea at Jonkershoek nature reserve, just out of town - a mecca for mountain bikers and hikers.  Afterwards we stopped in with some very distant (but I count them all) family, who had adopted Hod's dog, for more tea and a chat and a visit with Spencer, the Golden Retriever.  Isabel's house was a typical Cape Dutch place nestled into the trees between Jonkershoek and Stellenbosch and the tea and the chat made me feel right at home.


We returned the next morning to Jonkershoek for a 10km 'trail' (well, trail in my mind but probably not in someone like Rolo's). It was stunning scenery with mountains rising on either side of us and the mist pouring down into the valley.

After a coffee recovery we then headed out with Hod and her stepdaughter, Margaret, for a family Sunday lunch in Franschhoek (French Quarter) where we would meet up with some more family and again feel like we were at home in this dangerous, beautiful country.

The Sunday South African Connection. With Audrey, Margaret, Rochelle, Courtney and Charles.

 That evening, the three of us headed back to the vineyard next door for a picnic on the grass and a concert.  The music wasn't exactly the style of any of us, but I at least liked lying on the grass under the trees and enjoying where we were - music in the foreground, mountains in the background.

TIA

Thursday 3 February to Friday 4 February


We've been playing the honeymoon card as often as possible and although we didn't get an upgrade on our flight over to Johannesburg they did give us five seats between the two of us for the 14 or so hour journey, which was almost as good (although I've only ever ridden economy so it's probably good I don't know how much better it can get).  I perfected my method of avoiding dry mouth by effectively smothering myself and managed to get a good amount of sleep in (on top of the five hours we had at the hotel earlier), perhaps as a result of the lack of oxygen.

The perfect way to welcome me to SA at Johannesburg Airport.

Arriving at 6am I made a beeline for Vodacom for a sim, Mugg and Bean for a coffee and Woolworths for groceries.. In that order.

Even at the airport Woolworths (in which they sell clothes and appliances too here) the fruit was amazingly cheap - I couldn't help but grab a punnett of raspberries for $2 - but I had to be quite sensible and grab a few supplies for our 22 hour train journey.  The Shosholoza Meyl (a train as difficult to board as it is to spell) didn't leave until midday, so we were very boring and hung out at the hotel for a few hours, shying away from the thought of lugging our heavy packs mindlessly around Johannesburg.

After we got sick of airport sitting we not-so-bravely took a private car over to the Johannesburg train station at Park Street, where the driver made a point of escorting us through the station to the Shosholoza offices and then telling the security guard at the office to look after us and for us to go only where the security guard thought suitable.  This and the fact that we were the only whites in the station freaked Jono out a bit.  Perhaps my midnight session at Nairobi airport 12 months ago with no passport steeled me a bit for this experience.

I had also wanted us to arrive early because I anticipated problems with our train tickets.  I already knew that a fee had been deducted by an SA intermediary bank when I paid for the tickets in Australia.  I had been trying to follow the problem up in the weeks leading up to our trip with no luck and in the end it turned out that the Shosholoza Meyl hadn't booked our tickets for our two person coupe, so I'm glad we arrived early.

After much begging and pleading the tickets were booked despite the R125 shortfall and we were on our way...  So we thought - until the train manager told us that whole train had been booked and there was potentially no room for us.  He took us down to the platform and told us to wait while he sorted things out.  We were waiting with the economy class passengers, who had brought what seemed to be everything they owned with them.  It was an overnight train so people had bags full of duvets with them.

There was a moment where we thought we might be placed down in economy, on wooden seats, amongst the masses for the journey.  I was mentally devising plans on how to befriend our potential travel companions, otherwise it might have been an awkward 22 hours ahead of us.

Then, just as the train pulled up the manager told us that we would have a staff sleeper for the journey, so we effectively got an upgrade from our two person coupe to a four person sleeper and things were looking more and more Darjeeling Limited for us!  I did feel pretty guilty about the space we had in the sleeper compared to the families in economy class though.

We boarded at Johannesburg and hopped off just after Worcester at Huguenot 22 hours later.

White minority on the platform

All aboard the Shosholoza Meyl

Castle beer - R20 for two (or ~AUD3)

I didn't take photos of the first day's travel because the scenery was the same as Australia's.  When we woke up on the Friday morning we were greeted with something more like the 'real Africa'… for me anyway! Mountains and fynbos.

On the journey we went past a sewerage plant.  The smell filled our sleeper cabin and we both turned our noses up.. until we went past the flock of flamingos, who were having a lovely time at the plant.
TIA THIS is Africa.

Sometime in the afternoon the neighbours in the sleeper next to us befriended us.  Two Afrikaners from up north named Allen and Cindy.  This was Cindy's first train ride and first holiday in eight years, she'd never seen the sea or the snow or been to another country, let alone Cape Town where they were headed.  I think we seemed very exotic to her!  Allen had seen a bit, but not much more.  Either way, they were incredibly generous, introducing us to the local drinks - I got hooked on the Savanna ciders, Jono on the beer, shots, scotch and red wine (like a good traveller who is accepting someone else's generous hospitality should).  Some time before the shots, scotch and red one of the staff came around with a menu to take our meal orders.  For R30 each (or AUD4) we were served giant and delicious plates of chicken, gravy and pap.  The next day I ordered curry and pap for lunch and it was just as good.  We've struggled to find such good value for money since.

Bunking down in our sleeping bags it was a surprisingly comfortable ride.  We woke up just before Beaufort West, where the train stopped for half an hour.  There was a kiosk (really just a hole in a wall) on the platform selling loaves of bread, juice and sausage rolls etc and provided a great people watching opportunity as our sleeper faced the kiosk.  A couple of times I saw some guys completely undo their pants and reach right down the inside of their jeans to retrieve their cash.  After the rush, Jono headed out and grabbed some sausage rolls and a bottle of juice.  The sausage rolls were delicious, almost a sweet mince with a flakey pastry.  I think he said they were R3 each or something ridiculous.  I think we understood the juice because it was as sweet and as thick as cordial!

I was a bit nervous about taking a shower, but since I hadn't had one since KL it was definitely time!  I shouldn't have been nervous though, it was a surprisingly awesome experience - showering with the countryside flying by!

Sometime after lunch we hit a tunnel system and when we emerged we were in the mountains and valleys and it was immediately hotter.  Vineyards and orchards started to appear and then our cabin started baking.  We were packed and ready to go, but totally wilted.  Late in the afternoon we arrived at Huguenot and we burst off the train with our gear onto the platform.  Poor Audrey had been waiting for us for about half an hour in the heat!

We were so grateful when she told us there was a pool at her retirement complex!  We could have been at a resort!  The mountains of Stellenbosch in the background and this crystal blue pool welcoming us.  The resort feel didn't last for long though, on such a hot day the pool was a popular place and soon we were joined by three or four residents and immediately the conversation turned surprisingly typically to Andre Rieu!

Wednesday - It begins in KL

Wednesday – It begins

So our adventure began the way all good adventures begin – with trouble.  We arrived in KL at 3am exhausted and desperate to crawl our way into bed at the transit hotel (where we had been allotted two lots of six hours, one in the morning and one in the evening).  While I paid attention to the airhostess’s instructions on how to navigate our way through the airport renovations I failed to look at the instructions on our hotel reservation confirmation page.

Only after clearing immigration, baggage claim and customs did we realise that the transit hotel was INSIDE the terminal and to get there we would need to check in again and go back through immigration again to get to the hotel.  In the exhaustion, with everything being shut and with conflicting information this took us a while to work out it was 6:30am before we were able to check into another hotel and 7am when we got into bed.

I think we only slept for a couple of hours and woke up feeling pretty disgusting, but adventurous.  Our hotel was lumped in the middle of no where and stuck out like a sore thumb in a small settlement about 45 minutes from KL, but we had a view onto an oval where the kids were playing soccer and someone was letting off early Chinese New Year fire crackers (which, with the news about Cairo on BBC all morning definitely made us jump).

View from the hotel

 

We headed out to find some breakfast and bumped into an English couple on the internet in the lobby.  They wanted to do some of the same things we wanted to  do in KL so we arranged to meet them in half an hour and share a taxi to the city.

Breakfast turned out to be crackers and vegemite, courtesy of Francesca.  This has remained a staple snack all the way along the Shosholoza Meyl route and we’re putting an alert out that more vegemite will be required shortly.

In the taxi we learnt that our fellow travellers were named Ken and Susan, an older than middle aged English couple that had decided to travel instead of have kids.  They’d been everywhere man, and KL was a stop on their way home from three months in Australia.  


We went with them to see the bird park in the Lake Gardens, which was exotic and upsetting all at the same time.  All those birds of prey locked up and bored.  Not even the cassowaries cared!  We sat through a disastrous bird show and then decided the place wasn’t for us.  Jumped in a taxi with a really lovely driver and headed directly for the China Town markets and then when we got there wondered why we hadn’t gone there earlier.  

A more serene bird than the one we saw at Taronga Zoo

Outside the bird show

The towers in the background

Albino crow

One for Amy

It was an intersection of food and genuine fake stores, but it was loads of fun and I think that Chinese New Year had put a shine on things.  We stumbled into this great ‘food court’ brimming with people and smells.   There was a BBQ going, duck and pork hanging in windows, a juice bar and noodles everywhere.  We settled on two plates of noodles and a lychee juice and it was both delicious and cheap but didn't settle our need for a last chance yum cha.


Afterwards I bought an $8 pair of Ray Bans and a $4 Casio and we jumped in a taxi back to the hotel.  Getting out of our car all our yum cha dreams came true when just across the road we found a store selling freshly made steamed buns.  Being an Islamic area they were a bit light on the pork ones, but the chicken curry and the red bean buns were an accepted compromise. 


Back at the hotel and keen for a nap we set our alarms for two hours later and settled in, only to wake five hours later and only an hour before check in time...

Oh Hell

Monday – Oh Hell

I had best start the story at the beginning of the week, Monday 31 January.  We kicked off the morning with a really lovely breakfast at a great café I used to go to when I was working in Balmoral called ‘Billy’s’.   It’s for me like having breakfast in the perfect family kitchen, so it was the perfect place to meet my Mum and Dad for a farewell breakfast.  I have been totally detached from my feelings when saying goodbye to people lately.  But I did have a bit of trouble saying goodbye to Mum and Dad that morning.  I’m glad we’ve taught them to Skype.

Monday was the day our passports were due from the UK consulate, but when it came to opening the letterbox we were faced with the worst situation – only one of the passports had arrived.  Greedily and selfishly I was pleased to have mine in my hands with the fresh new stamp from the UK visas office.  But not having Jono’s made us feel sick to the bone.  Both Australia Post and the Visa office said they didn’t have it, but thankfully both sides were both sympathetic and extremely cooperative, just desperately lacking in results.

We still went about the day as if we were travelling the next day, went to the beach, packed, cleaned, had a dinner with friends, but there was a dark cloud blackening that amazing Sydney summer’s day.

Tuesday – Can it be?

I woke the same way I had been waking during the whole visa process – with the sun barely up and my heart pounding in my chest.  I got up and watched the sun rise, went for a walk, re-routed my walk to the post office, banged on the door until someone answered and made them search for the parcel.  No luck.  I couldn’t wake Jono with the news so I dilly dallied my way home.  It didn’t really matter, Jono woke as soon as I walked in the door.  I had to tell him that there was no package at the post office (and so real chance that it would be delivered that day). 

Separately we changed tactics: I called my brother to see if he could drive over to the consulate again and beg them to look in every nook and cranny and Jono checked the Australia Post website again with the tracking number.   

The website had a hit!  It said that the passport was at Frenchs Forrest DF.  W . T . F. ?!  We jumped in the car making a bee line for Frenchs Forrest and then hit the morning traffic.  But at the same time my phone rang - it was Australia Post confirming that the passport would be delivered in the regular mail that morning.  Could it be so?  We had three or so hours until the post came and oh the waiting!!  I had everyone and everything on standby for the drop.  We had breakfast at The Troubadour to kill some time, leaving us with two hours and forty five minutes worth of looking off the balcony for the post man… and the rest of the packing that we didn't have the heart to do earlier.

And the post man arrived!  All systems go!

The rest of the day was all about making the house look better than it ever has looked while we’ve been living in it (and making the process of leaving it on that stunning summer's day even harder) and then all of a sudden it was time to leave for the airport.  I couldn’t take a last look at our little home because I knew that that would break the floodbank of tears.  We ferried our way to the city and I genuinely wondered what the hell I was doing.  We had dinner with Dan and Jen at the pub and then it was time to be off to the airport.  OMG what are we doing?

I think for both of us our feelings began to change somewhere during the middle of the flight to Kuala Lumper – I definitely became more excited and I know that that was the point Jono’s black passport cloud began to disperse.

No body else cleans the oven with retro sunnies on?

Our Last Sydney Sunrises

The Troubadour Feed - Last Aussie bacon and egg roll for a while

Waiting...

He's here!

The drop