Tom, Flo and I arrived in Franschhoek the day after Chrismas and checked in to the beautiful mansion we would stay at with all our friends who came to South Africa to see us. The first to arrive was Nader, one of Tom’s oldest and best friends and shortly after Kate and Jenny arrived, two of my closest friends from back home. Also Angelo joined us a bit later that day, another very close friend of Tom. We had a happy reunion and celebrated with a delicious dinner out in town. The next day, Bettina and Nathalie arrived and last but not least, Timo, my brother, made his way to us as well. We enjoyed the company, the beautiful house, and all the fantastic food in and around Franschhoek. You do not have to look far to find excellent restaurants in this area, so we went to many unique places - fine dining at its best.
For New Year’s Eve, we decided to stay “home” and cook ourselves since most of the restaurants only offered very fancy and expensive pre-set NYE-Dinners, and we thought it would be more fun to spend the day in and around the house, cooking together and having a blast. Everyone went beyond themselves, and we enjoyed a 5-star dinner with fantastic wine. Of course, we did celebrate not only the New Year but also Tom’s birthday on the 31st; I even baked him the long-promised birthday cake ;) We had a great party day and night but getting older has its disadvantages as well… we all needed a whole day to recover, luckily, we had the perfect place to chill and hang out all day long and to cool off in the pond in front of the house.
The following day, we were ready again to go on a wine-tasting tour. We rented a driver and a bus and visited many different vineyards, like the famous Babylonstoren, Chamonix, Haute Cabrière, and the Boschendal Wine Estate.
The second week, we spent all together in Cape Town, where we rented a big house in Camps Bay. It was the perfect place to do many trips in and around this amazing city. Of course, we visited the Cape of Good Hope, Simon’s Town, and the penguins, Muizenberg, we climbed Table Mountain (we took the route starting from the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden, which I can highly recommend), we also hiked Lions Head for sunrise, meaning we started at 4 am in the dark with our head torches to reach the summit in time before dawn, which was a very cool experience. Of course, we also “tested” lots of the fabulous restaurants Cape Town has to offer, we were not disappointed once, and I’m pretty sure all of us were carrying one or two extra kilos after this trip ;) The cuisine in South Africa does not disappoint, and with the current exchange rate, it was quite affordable for us, too.
Our group even grew bigger, since Jenny’s mum and her whole family came to South Africa, as well. She was celebrating her 70th Birthday and wanted to escape the cold in Switzerland, that’s why she decided to join Jenny and us partly and fly to South Africa as well for a couple of weeks. On her birthday, she invited us to spend a day at the wine estate Vergelegen, where we enjoyed a fantastic picnic deluxe in the park.
After these first two weeks together with our friends, it was time for some of them to return to work. With a smaller group, including my brother Timo, Kate, Flo, and Nathalie, and of course Tom and I, we left Cape Town and drove east to explore some places along the famous Garden Route. Our first stop was in the Hoop Nature Reserve, a beautiful place well worth a visit if you like South African nature with the dunes and the ocean. Our next stop was in Knysna, where we spent two nights in a cool house on Thesen Island. On the way, we also stopped in Wilderness and did a fun hike up to a waterfall. And our last stop in Plettenberg, we met Jenny and her family again. We enjoyed a lovely dinner at Barrington’s together. The next and last day together we spent at the beach and for dinner we had a little pizza-party at our Airbnb place, a great and fun way to end this trip.
Very early the next morning, we had to leave to bring Timo and Flo to the airport in Cape Town. Nathalie continued her trip further east, and Jenny, Kate, Tom, and I had one last week to look forward to together. We booked a lovely place in Misty Cliffs, an absolutely stunning home south of Cape Town. Kate and Jenny were working remotely from there, and Tom and I used the time to plan the rest of our trip, it was after all, time to start thinking about how we will get home and what we want to do when we got there… but that is a topic for another blog:) One last highlight in our final week was the lunch at the Chef’s Warehouse Tintswalo, where Tom made a reservation for the 4 of us about three months in advance. This restaurant is very famous and always fully booked, so we were lucky that we had the chance to go there. The food was amazing and we spotted many dolphins from the lovely terrace during our meal, a beautiful experience.
Like all the others, also this week went by very fast, and it was time to say goodbye. Tom and I had brought our Defender to the mechanic shop for a big service at the beginning of this week, and we also needed to replace our suspensions. The plan was to pick up the car the same day Kate and Jenny were leaving again, but it didn’t go according to our plan. We were thrown back into our African Hakuna Matata lifestyle faster than we had imagined and needed to come up with a new plan. Alex, the mechanic from Pon Steyn, where our Defender was staying, told us he needed at least another four days until he was done. Tom and I, however, were very lucky. For the first two nights, the Airbnb host of the amazing house we were staying at offered us to stay for a bargain, which was a no-brainer, we, of course, accepted his offer. In the following days, Jenny’s parents, who still stayed in Camps Bay, offered us to stay at their apartment. They had an extra bedroom they didn’t use and welcomed us to their place. Cape Town had us back, and we made the most of this week by enjoying the city one last time, seeing some of the people we met, and of course, we also spent a lot of time with Beatrice and Marcel, our kind hosts. Together we visited the Meerlust wine estate, my absolute favorite winemaker in South Africa, not just because of the name, and we also went on a horse ride along Long Beach; it was Tom’s first time on a horse! :)
We had one last surprise waiting for us. After four days, Alex called us to inform us that the car was finished and ready. We were delighted and made plans to pick up the Defender the next day. On the phone, Tom asked if they had also replaced our second diesel filter when they had done the service. It is rare to have two filters, so we asked. Alex told us they hadn’t, but he would do it immediately. It’s only a tiny thing to do and takes 20 minutes tops. A couple of hours later, he called us again with terrible news. They had taken off the filter, during which process they made a huge hole, so it was useless, which wouldn’t have been a problem, only that they realized afterward that they did not have a replacement. They started looking all over Cape Town in spare parts shops and other mechanic shops, but it was impossible to find such a filter anywhere in South Africa. We asked Anna, our mechanic from back home if we could drive around without it, but she strongly advised against it. So we stood again without our Defender, but we were incredibly lucky. For one, we had our last two friends who came for a short visit to South Africa. Their flight was in two days, so Anna sent them the filter we needed, so they could take it with them and bring it to us. For two, Beatrice and Marcel were also staying just until the day we could pick up the filter and get it to Pon Steyn, the mechanic shop, so we did not have to look for a new accommodation after all. Luckily, it all worked out in the end, and we had our Defender back, ready to continue our African road trip.
