© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

KNYSNA

Knysna is one of the Southern Cape Coast's best known holiday destinations. It nestles on the edge of a beautiful tranquil lagoon in the heart of the 'garden route'. Surrounded by a natural paradise of indigenous lush forests, peaceful lakes and beautiful golden sandy beaches, offering a wide variety of activities to suit all. As we approached Knysna we were impressed with the view, everything looked so beautiful. I hadn't wanted to stop at Knysna, I don't know why, I think by this time I was just really looking forward to getting back to Cape Town as we had been away for almost a fortnight. But as usual I am so pleased that Richard talked me in to staying overnight because it was such a lovely place, probably one of the nicest, prettiest places we stayed on this fortnight away. We spoke to the people at the tourist information who recommended somewhere for us to stay. We stayed at the Knysna Manor House, Bed and Breakfast, 19 Fitchat Street, which was lovely. Our room was separate from the main building, on the second floor overlooking a courtyard. It was nicely furnished with everything we needed, and most importantly there was private secure parking directly underneath our room. Knysna was very busy when we were there, full of tourists, but it had a very relaxed friendly feel to it. There was so much to do for those who wished to be active, such as four shopping centres, supermarkets, boutiques, restaurants, cafes and lots of smaller independent specialised shops, as well as fifteen churches, and most importantly lots of pubs most of which offered good wholesome food along with locally brewed beer from Mitchells Brewery, more of which later. If shopping, cafes and restaurants are not what you want, there were lots of galleries where you could purchase local arts and crafts, and for fans of the train Knysna is home to one of the last single gauge working steam trains in the world. The train travels between Knysna and George, passing beautiful scenery of the Garden Route along the way. Bird watching is another popular pastime as the area is home to over 280 species of bird. Knysnas location on the lagoon near to forests, sea and mountains made it excellent for leisurely walks, more energetic hikes, biking, paddling, horse riding or a lazy picnic. I think we only stayed for one or two nights, can't remember. We were more than happy to relax and stand still for a while after all of the driving of the last fortnight. We did drag ourselves away from the great bars and restaurants for a couple of hours though, we visited Mitchells Brewery. The brewery was much smaller than we had imagined it would be, and thankfully empty when we arrived apart from one old guy sitting quietly enjoying a large tankard of beer. The brewery was on an old industrial estate and quite hard to find, but worth the effort. The guy running the place was very friendly, and we sat at the bar chatting and sampling the beers, poor old Richard couldn't drink too much as he was driving. Foresters Draught and Bosuns Bitter were a couple of the brews and when blended together they came up with Mitchells Gold, lovely! We had drank some of the beers from this brewery whilst in Cape Town, and as we were so near to the actual brewery we thought we may as well pop in. The rest of our time was spent wandering round the shops and relaxing, chatting, drinking and eating by the waterfront. One evening we ate out at a really good restaurant, or so I thought during dinner. The restaurant was made to look like a train carriage, the food was, as always on our South African travels, absolutely delicious. But unfortunately during the night I was violently ill, I felt so bad. After a very restless night I was still feeling less than fit the following morning but I insisted that Richard go in to the main part of our hotel and at least have some tea or coffee, even if he didn't feel like eating any breakfast. I was still groaning on the bed when he returned a little later, with some tablets for me. Seeing that he was sitting on his own, two other guests had asked him to join them, everywhere in Knysna was like this ~ so friendly. Anyway these two gorgeous women (I saw them later) took quite a shine to Richard, no surprise there, he does tend to attract lots of attention from the female of the species ... he is rather gorgeous himself, or at least he was when he was younger! Whilst chatting to his new friends Richard had told them that his poor wife (me) was up in our room unwell. Straight away one of the ladies went and got some tablets for me, how nice, and they weren't poison as I lived to tell this tale! It was when Richard was packing the car, with me standing on the overhead walkway watching him, that these two women came out to their car. They said hi to Richard and then looked up and saw me, asked if I was feeling any better, which thankfully I was, and then said how disappointed they were that Richard really did have a wife with him, and that they're loss was my gain! With that they drove off. We were off too, on our way to Stellenbosch. Ooops ~ not before making a quick u-turn to our hotel to pick up a bag we had left behind, nothing too important, it only contained our passports, driving licence, money etc! The maid was already in our room cleaning when I rushed back up there, and our bag was sitting untouched where we had left it, very refreshing to know there are still some trustworthy people in the world. So once again, we were off on our way to Stellenbosch.

STELLENBOSCH

Stellenbosch was a lovely place to stop for a couple of nights before heading back 'home' to Cape Town. With its rolling green hills and lush valleys Stellenbosch is often compared to southern France. I guess the fact that there were lots of different wine producing estates in the area also meant people would be reminded of France. Apparently wine producing began in the region in the 1670's after the arrival of 200 French Huguenots. The town itself felt very European, and locally to where we stayed the wide avenues were lined with oak trees. Many of the buildings were of the Cape Dutch style, and there was a lively young feel to the place, probably due to the university students. We stayed at Michaelhouse guest house and bed and breakfast, 29 Van Riebeeck Street, which is situated in the historic heart of Stellenbosch, within easy walking distance of the town centre and the University of Stellenbosch. There were four double bedrooms each individually decorated with en-suite, television with DSTV, air conditioning, mini bar and everything else we could have possibly needed. Our en-suite was very nice and large with a lovely big roll top bath, the bedroom was also large with a sofa at the foot of the bed, and double doors that led out onto the pretty garden. We wanted to taste some of the local wines so we got in the car, turned the stereo up full blast and hit the accelerator, very happily driving along until we came to Neethlingshof Estate. The estate was founded in 1692, but much has changed since then. We drove along an avenue of beautiful pine trees which led us up to the estate. Neethlingshof has a long tradition of wine making and is now owned by Lusan Premium Wines, the estate also capitalises on its magnificent Cape Dutch manor house and the beautiful panoramic views of mountains and False Bay. We were told that Neethlingshof's fine wines were award winners on the international stage, made from a variety of grapes including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinotage, Shiraz, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. We decided not to go on a tour but we did taste a glass or two, me more so than Richard, as yet again he was the driver for that trip! Tastings are offered from 9am-5pm Mon-Fri, 10am-4pm Sat & Sun. You can also tour the cellar by appointment. There was a restaurant in the main house, the Lord Neethling, we didn't want to eat there we were happy to sit outside the restaurant on the Palm Terrace which overlooks the gardens of the estate. When we were ready to leave we were offered our glasses from our earlier wine tasting as a keepsake. We thought we would keep them and they were carefully wrapped in tissue paper for us along with a few bottles of red wine. Just as well we kept the glasses as we still have them today, which is how I know the name of this particular estate, I would not have remembered otherwise. The temperature on this day was extremely warm, so sitting out on the terrace and having the sun beating down on me, and drinking the odd vino or two really took it out of me. I felt like I had a bit of a hangover, must have been all that sun, glad I wasn't driving anyway! One evening we walked into the centre of town for a drink and possibly something to eat, we felt quite old as there seemed to be fresh young students everywhere. After a drink at a cafe/bar we walked round a little more before we found a very loud lively pub. They were serving food which seemed popular, so we decided to eat there. As usual I can not remember the name of the place we ate, but the food was as always excellent. There were a large number of very good places to eat in and around Stellenbosch, including De Akker, 90 Dorp Street, good for pub lunches and it gets more lively after 11pm, popular with students. Another good place was De Cameron, 50 Plein Street, which was considered at the time to be one of the best restaurants in town, serving southern Italian food and excellent seafood. Stellenbosch's top restaurant and run by a master chef was Ralph's, 13 Andringa Street, which served fantastic international dishes such as it's popular ostrich steak, thankfully the food outshone the decor which was in need of a rethink, all 1980's black red and white. As we were on our way back to Cape Town, and mainly in Stellenbosch for the wine, there is not much else to say about the place. It was absolutely lovely though, and apart from some seriously frightening nightmares (side effect of anti malarial drug), we had a thoroughly enjoyable stay in Stellenbosch, which like Knysna was incredibly pretty. The next thing for us to do was to drive back to Cape Town.

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