Great South African Road Trip: Cape Winelands

Spent the last few days staying in the wine country. Most people who come out here stay in Stellenbosch, and everyone says you have to go to Stellenbosch when you are in SA. Just so that I could be a little different, I decided to stay in a smaller town, Franschhoek, a little ways away.

From Cape Winelands

I think it was a really good decision. The town is very nice, friendly, and with lots of restaurants. They say the scenery is supposed to be great too, but I can't really say for sure because the clouds haven't lifted enough for me to see it.

From here I drove around to Stellenbosch and Paarl (another nice, town). The one place I have to say I didn't like was Stellenbosch. So far, it is the only place in SA where people on the street have come up and bothered me for money. So the place left me with a bit of a negative vibe. The historic center is nice, and there seem to be a lot of cool restaurants, so I can see how people would like it. Maybe just bad luck on my part, but my suggestion is to stay outside Stellenbosch and drive into town to eat. Paarl was a nice feeling town too. I even stopped and did a little wine tastting.

From Cape Winelands

I wanted to go walk up along these big rock outcroppings they have. Turns out it was a long dirt road to get to them. By the time I arrived, I was in a cloud. I decided to wait to see if it cleared, instead it started raining hard. So, I turned around and headed back without ever really getting a good view of anything. That's pretty much been the story of the wine country for me.

The next day, I drove south to the coast in search of better weather, and found it. I went to Cape L'Agulhas, the southermost point in Africa. Everyone thinks it is the Cape of Good Hope, but if you look on the map closely, you see that it is not the southernmost point at all.

From Cape Winelands

I wasn't expecting much of the place, and it's nowhere near as dramatic as the Cape of Good Hope, but the drive down was very scenic, and the town there was nice, quiet little coastal town.