VIP wine-tasting with Hempies du Toit
I'm a garagiste', I enjoy wine and I guide many wine tours in the Cape Winelands. Without a doubt my favourite winery is Annandale. Many people ask why I am so enthusiastic about this cellar. Well for a start, it is housed in an old historic buildicheap cialis onlineng that was built in the late 1600's. It is beautiful and peaceful here and it as a very small intimate destination. Theses days it seems to me that many of the wineries are status symbols of wealthy individuals and...
Cape Town weather
We started off once again in blustery weather on the beach, with heavy clouds and a westerly wind. As a result of the high winds and storm the previous day, the beach was strewn with Portuguese Man O'War (Physalia physalis). These creatures have no form of independent locomotion and are simply blown by the wind and carried by the currents. The posses stinging cells which can deliver a very painful sting and unfortunately Kili was stung on the foot. The pain subsided after about 30 minutes and...
Heuningvlei revisited
I've been extremely fortunate to have had an adventurous few months, traveling to special places. As you noticed in my previous blog, I was recently fortunate enough to be guiding in the Okavango Delta (my favourite place in the world). Next purchase viagra online ukweek I'll be in The Greater Kruger National Park and along the way I have been in The Cederberg, Francistown and The Succulent Karoo as well as up and down Table Mountain a few times. As the author of this blogspot I...
Once was famous
Protea repens or as it is better known by its afrikaans name - Suikerbos, was once the national flower of South Africa. However something happened in 1976 and it was deposed by Protea cynaroides which is currently our national flower. I have no idea what heinous crime our Suikerbos committed and I certainly think that our current national flower is magnificent, but Protea repens certainly has enough features to warrant its prior status. The plant has a very wide geographical distribution through the Cape Floral Kingdom as well as being found in...
Sex & Slaves in the City
Yes, I know that I have been somewhat tardy about uploading regular blogs. And I have been suitably chastised by several of our regular readers. The reason for my tardiness is that I have been distracted and consumed by the (re)launch of our phenomenal Sex & Slaves in the City "tour". I hesitate to use the word "tour", because Dean and Samantha have elevated this to the status of superb street theatre. They have taken a well researched narrative about the lives of slaves at the Cape and with humour, choreography and...
Over the Hill
Actually the title of this article does not refer to me - nor to Kili (and obviously not to Meru). It refers to the route that we walked today. We started on the beach and walked to the wreck of the Kakapo, which went down (actually 'up' in this case) in 1900. Captain Nicholayson miscalculated his position under conditions of poor visibility and instead of rounding The Cape of Good Hope, he parked his ship on Noordhoek Beach! A little later we found an enormous log which was part of a ships...
Cape Town’s oldest theatre
St. Stephen’s Church on Riebeek square in central Cape Town is the only Dutch Reformed church named after a saint. But the story runs a little deeper than that. The building was erected during the first British occupation as a theatre which opened onviagra price the 17th November 1800; consequently making it the oldest theatre in South Africa and the only theatre to become a church. Back under Dutch regime for a little while it was called the Afrikaansche Schouwburg or simply the Komediehuis. With the official emancipation of...
JAN VAN RIEBEEK – Before and after The Cape
Most of us are unaware of the fact that Jan Van Riebeek only spent ten years of his life at the Cape. The legacy he left behind however is one of epic proportion. Statues, Street names, river names, school names, suburb nlevitra no prescriptionames, town names, you name it, it’s called Riebeek. But who was the man before and after the Cape? To begin with, he was born in Culemborg in the Netherlands as Johan Anthoniszoon van Riebeeck on 21 April 1619 as the son of a surgeon. Jan grew up...
Imagine if we all spoke French?
For almost a thousand years the French and the British have been having a go at each other. From the Battle of Hastings in 1066, to the bid for the 2012 Olympics (which the Brits have won by the way), one’s loathing of the other has kept the Anglo-French war alive. This too is true for each of the country’s colonies. Although the Cape was first settled by the Dutch in 1652, Sir Francis Drake had passed earlier in 1580 and left his British Flag behind. It was only much...