Blommenhuis Guesthouse Montagu

... rolling valley surrounded by mountains in the distance, were still covered in vineyards: Route 66 claims to be the longest wine route in the world. We needed cash (not as many places take credit cards as we had imagined), and found an ATM in Robertson, a bustling, clean and well kept town.

A quick stop for petrol in the predominantly black township of Ashton, and 20 minutes later we rolled into the deserted but quaint town of Montagu (shops close Saturday afternoon). A quick browse ...

... say they smoke it because it tastes nice. The boy gets out a guitar and I get out my harps and we have a bit of a jam, neither of us know anything the other knows so he just strums chords and I play the blues, Marianne says it sounds pretty good anyway.

When we've played for a while, we all call it a night because they all have work in the morning and we have to drive back to the coast.

During the night it rains pretty hard and the rain on the tin roof wakes us all up.

... would now be considered middle class and their life style was surprisingly comfortable and sophisticated in spite of the remoteness of the area. We were fascinated by the floors in the kitchen and pantry which were made of peach pips set into beeswax, apparently an old local method which creates a very hard wearing surface which was as good today as it was when first laid. We spent the next day at the local hot springs whose healing properties are said to ...

We set off for Montagu and Route 62, calling in at the Olympia Cafe in Kalks Bay for a take-out coffee and a quick look at the harbour and the local fish. Then we hit roadworks for 30km.... Finally arrived in Montagu late afternoon, which is a beautiful little village set in a gorge. We found a very nice place to stay, wandered around a bit and then found a very nice place to eat dinner, in the courtyard of a Cape Dutch mansion under a 100-year-old pear tree.

After ditching our plans to head to Knysna for the night since we learned we could never realistically make it there in a day (thankfully Irene had asked someone for directions), we headed for Swellendam, one of the first European settlements in South Africa. From there we would be able to easily visit the De Hoop Nature Reserve, a place heralded in our guide books as one of the most peaceful places on Earth. The drive to Swellendam ...

It was wine all round on the longest wine route in the world, Route 62. A jolly long road with more vineyards than you can shake a stick at. We can report back that South Africans do like growing wine and it tastes very good. If you have never been on a vineyard before and had a tour or a wine tasting experience then its well worth it. We toured around six stunningly beautiful vineyards in one day and spent some time at each with the owners ...

... Some of the touch aaaaaaaa'some, the guld between the two hemispheres is incredible. Aus picked up the gold medal for every grade bar the mixed over 30s and mixed open. The girls spent the day perving on all the boys, as you can imagine wishy and I were disgusted and attempted todisassociate ourselves with this type of the behaviour. There was no using the telescopic lens on my camera to observe the aussie ladies in the skin tight shorts moving about ...

Hello from Africa - No wonder we don't sell too many Hyundi's in the US, did you know that everything is reversed in these cars - it scared the hell out of me because - Your blinker is your windsheild wiper - Your driving hand is used for shifting and your shifting hand for driving - Seat belt is over your right shoulder and when you reverse you look over your left - No cruise control and it bounces down the road being effected by everything from the ...

... settled then, but Moses, quite obnoxiously, handed us his leaflet with all the tours while driving on very windy roads and told us to read the tour descriptions and make our pick! Well, I never get car sick unless I read, so I said I'd check out the tours later. Turns out later, Moses is actually quite a sweet guy, at least according to the guest book, and just a little pushy with his tours sometimes. And then ...

... a bit of a wild west style turn & stare when we walked in ! To make matters worse, the storm which caused loads of severe flooding in Cape Town arrived that night, so we had the most violent thunderstorm I've experienced for ages that evening whilst eating (particularly good) seafood on our own in the restaurant... The meal had also been preceeded by our room being invaded by literally hundreds of varied small bugs crawling over everything in the room - including us ...