South Africa Day 2 and 3

On our 2nd day in South Africa we took the hop on-hop off bus around the Cape Town pennisula with our fellow LLL, Pat Lawrence.  Our main goal was to see the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.  We were able to see much of the Gardens but we only had until 5:45 PM to catch the last bus back to the main terminal in Cape Town.  We ended up with 2 1/4 hours in the gardens.  There was a clivia show and a show of the plants that the Kirstenbosch had in the Chelsea Flower show a couple of months before.  The gardens are full of protea as the pictures will show, including some giant protea.  During the first part of our bus ride we saw the roundabout where Cape Town had built a fountain with soccer balls to commemorate the World Cup this past summer.



Soccer Ball Fountain




Red Clivia
















We stopped at a sculpture in the garden of a Cheetah chasing an impala.

Pat Lawrence and Grace

Giant Protea

Pat among the Protea

We went past several beautiful bays on the last part of the hop on-hop off bus tour and two are shown below.  Hope we got the names right.  Cape Town has more pretty bays then one can count.

Hout's Bay

Camp's Bay

We had a lovely day and the next day we went to the wine country and bought 5 bottles of wine.  We went to 3 vineyards - Buitenverwachting, High Constantia and Groot Constantia.

At Buitenverwachting -



Grace, Carrie Douglass, Marillee Carroll, Ken

Good White from Buitenverwachting Vineyard

It seems that a movie, Blood Diamond, starring Leonardo DiCaprio was partially shot at Buitenverwachting vineyard and the dog there was in the movie.  Below the movie star dog.         

Here is the closest thing to a movie star we have seen

Next stop was the High Constantia vineyard, which is owned by David van Niekerk.  They make bubbly in addition to white and red.  Behind the vineyard is a nunnery.  Pretty interesting - making wine and nuns must mix okay.  As you know Ken always wants to know how things work.  So, he had to get involved with corking and sealing a bottle of bubbly.  

Grace and David with the Nunnery in the background

Here we also had a catered lunch.  The food was delicious.  It included some of the best oysters we have ever tasted.


Ken compressing the cork approximately half way into the bottle.

Ken pressing the seal onto the cork

After putting the seal on top of the cork you then turn the wire that holds the cork on.  After that you put on the various labels.  This bottle that we took back to the ship says, "Vintage 2007, Disgorged 2010, Alc 11 %Vol, Quantity 6000 of 8000".  The underlined is what Ken wrote on the label from instructions from David.  Ken was beaming he had such a great time.  The label also says, "ALCOHOL IS ADDICTIVE".  Duh!  Anyhow we are saving this bottle for Grace's birthday party with our extended family and a couple of friends when we meet in the Special Dining Room.  This trip was not an SAS sponsored one but was arranged by the assistant executive dean, Kathy Poole.  Kathy is with the University of Oregan and was an advisor to Oliver Hagen some years back and helped him do a year abroad at the University of Camp Town.  Oliver never left and he arranged with his partner, Shaun (or Sean) the trip to the vineyards.  Anyhow, Kathy is super lovely and a pleasure to be with.  We are lucky to have been included on this vineyard trip of 11 people.

Kathy Oliver and Shaun

Coming up next - the safari to Kariega Game Reserve.