days 2 and 3 of the james and chelsea blogs

Day two of our trip was the Winelands drive, which was a lot of fun and absolutely beautiful. We stopped at Durbanville Hills, a winery just west of Cape Town, and tasted some of their wine. James, not really a wine drinker, was happy to do the wine tasting with me (I’m sure he would have rather done scotch or beer tasting), so to appease both of us, we also ordered this fantastic charcuterie plate. It had fun meats and cheeses and a bread roll cutely wrapped up with paper and twine. I’m convinced that anything with twine is 10 times cuter automatically.

We continued on and drove through Stellenbosch and Franschoek, two more wine-producing areas, which are absolutely beautiful and speak for themselves in the photos. It was Land Before Time-esque, and we just had so much fun enjoying all the beauty and being amazed around each corner.

After the long day’s drive, we decided to just pick up some Nando’s around the corner on Long St., and relax. I think we actually fell asleep around 9, still a bit jet-lagged, not to mention tourist-tired (my term for the exhaustion that results from being constantly slightly lost and jamming way too much into each day).

For day three, we decided to check out Boulder’s Bay (to see the penguins), and headed down the famous Chapman’s Peak drive. We stopped a few places along the way – in Noordhoek village to get a beer – James saw a picture of a frog drinking a beer and decided we had to stop. Although when we went inside, there was no beer on the menu and it was quite awkward actually, but we asked and they did have some. We randomly watched gymnastics while drinking our awkward beers, but it was a little adventure and we had fun. Other than that, we did lots of stopping to take pictures of the scenery. Although the weather was not the best, everything is still gorgeous, and the clouds make the mountains look a bit more majestic in my opinion.

Highlight from today: stopping at Hout Bay for fish and chips at the famous Mariner’s Wharf. Not only did we have some amazing fish and chips (the best I’ve had), we got the added benefit of seeing some wild seals playing in the harbor. I was quite fascinated and could have watched them for hours – they are really funny creatures. The cape seals are known for being very fuzzy, something I never thought of seals being.

The recap will continue soon...