A Lactose Overdose

Simonsig Cellar... That's a lot of wine!

Ben, Grace, Judy, Taylor, and I took the weekend of the 23rd to visit the town of Stellenbosch, about an hour north of the city. Ben and Grace dropped us off downtown and took the car to Gordon's Bay for a hike and cliff jumping while Taylor, Judy, and I boarded a van bound for four local vineyards, a restaurant in Franschhoek, and a stomach ache.

The first vineyard, Simonsig, began with a cellar tour, which explained the wine making process from vine to bottle. Afterwards we sampled five different wines. The reds were better, but that is just my general preference. At the second vineyard, Fairview, we also tried five wines and were able to have a cheese tasting. They had a good Shiraz and even better cheese. Judy and I ended up going through the cheese tasting line three times... each time eating more than the time before. I can say without hesitation that I have never had so much cheese in one sitting in my entire life. My personal favorite was a garlic herb brie, but there was also good aged cheddar, blue cheese, cream crease spreads, chakalaka and brie, and more.

The view from Dieu Donne

Despite ordering a delicious basil pesto and pasta at the restaurant in the town of Franschhoek, I was beyond full and was beginning to feel like throwing up the pound of cheese. The feeling continued on to the third vineyard, Dieu Donne, where I had five glasses of champagne in the hopes that the bubbles would ease the pain on my stomach. In the end that did work so that by the time we got to the last vineyard of the tour I was not expecting a possible death by cheese.

After taking a nap in the hostel to sleep off the bottles of wine drank and the pounds of cheese eaten we went out for dinner in a really good restaurant where I tried a Kudu steak. It tasted a lot like elk (shout out to Dad!)

The spirit of adventure.

In the morning we took a drive into the mountains were we went on a very rainy hike. Despite being soaked the entire time, it was really fun and beautiful. The valley we hiked in reminded me of Yankee Boy Basin, just without the snow.