Waterford Estate

The highlight of living in Cape Town is not the mountain, as some would lead you to believe. It is not the sea which is too cold in which to swim. It is not even the way it conveniently manages to keep poor people out of the lines of vision of rich people. It is undoubtedly its proximity to the Cape Winelands – as good a reason to live there as any. In fact, if I were to start a city I would ensure that there was a plethora of possible vineyard sites within spitting distance beforehand.

While living in Cape Town, I visited plenty of farms in and around Paarl, Franschhoek and Stellebosch, and they are all so good that it became tricky for any one of them to stand out. Until I won a prize at a press conference to spend a night at Waterford Estate (Note: I was/am under absolutely no obligation to write about it).

It is one of the few vineyards in Stellenbosch at which one can spend the night in a large, beautifully furnished room on the second floor of its main building. Breakfast and six or seven bottles of wine are provided and the view out of the bedroom is so wide guests can see sunrise and sunset from the bed.

The lounge - contemporary decoration (apologies for it being out of focus).

The eye-watering view out of the bedroom window.

What the vineyards do offer, generally, is beauty, and Waterford Estate doesn’t disappoint. Although I arrived in a crap mood because the sign for the vineyard had fallen down and I’d covered most of the roads of the Western Cape finding it, the way it was set up from the gate to where guests park was incredible. I could describe it, but rather just look at these.

Both pics are of the main building at Waterford Estate. This is what is immediately presented to all visitors here. Pretty damn decent, I'd say.

That being said, prettiness is not something which necessarily differentiates one farm from another - you’ll rarely see an ugly one. There are two stark criteria which push Waterford Estate’s notability ahead of most others.

The first is the idea of a wine safari. I am not sure of other farms do this, but Waterford boast a concept in which you taste the wine while sitting sitting by the orchard in which (at least some of) its grapes were grown. Our guide (whose name escapes me) was involved in the whole wine production process from seed-planting right through to putting the cork in the bottle, so we were given a thorough explanation on every part of the farm which we drove through (and drank near). We were regaled with tales of how crops had been affected by massive winds and fires, how grapes are selected, how the quality is maintained and so on. All the while in a stunning setting.

This is a proper wine safari - this truck having arrived at Waterford for safari purposes from Singita.

The highlight of the safari was sampling Waterford’s signature wine, The Jem. This creation of this wine was a nine-year process with a plethora of concoctions attempted before Kevin Arnold, cellar master, and his team gave it the ok. We sampled this sitting on a hill with a view that stretched nearly the whole way to Cape Town.

The wines on the safari were matched with food – we sampled olives and nuts with the white wines and droewors and biltong with the reds. It all paired up beautifully, but it post-safari that Waterford surprised us again.

Three of Waterford's top red wines: a Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and it's premier product, The Jem.

I am sure most of you who have traversed wine country will have sampled the nectar alongside food. Well, Waterford Estate pairs up wines with chocolate. Usually putting two things people like together is a decent recipe for popularity. Well, how’s about two things people absolutely adore? The secret is in the high-quality chocolate provided, flavoured beautifully. A deep dark chocolate, a brown rose-water flavour and a milk chocolate accompanied with four of Waterford’s high-quality wines. I suppose the message is that wine is not just a meal accompaniment, it is a leisure pursuit too – not something wine-producing countries like South Africa need to know, but the rest of the world could be taught a thing or two.

The chocolate-pairings and the wine safari do make Waterford stand out within the region. However, and most importantly, it still provides the main top-quality aspect that one would expect anyway: superb, well-thought out wines.

It certainly gets my stamp of approval.

This is a Simon travel pointer.

Hong Kong news 3 November

We still have no internet at home, so I am, once again, down at the coffee shop with a cursory Coke Light so I can abuse ther wireless connection. I am this close to downloading a few seasons of 30 Rock as I spend so much time here I feel I deserve it.

To the news. Today's ripped publications shall include the tabloidy The Standard and the (Chinese) government-controlled China Daily.

Look at what a good South African I am. I even chose a picture with a white folk and a coloured folk with the famous black folk.

SPORT (I do sport first when SA is involved)
Makhaya Ntini has retired from international cricket. I remember this oke when he made his debut against Sri Lanka in what I think was 19978. Aravinda de Silva have him a pretty rude awakening by thrashing him all around Newlands. It wasn't till a few years later that Ntini settled properly into the South African team, and, with Shaun Pollock, provided one of the best new-ball combos South Africa has had since re-admission. Ntini was probably the fittest cricketer that has ever lived, and use dto run back to his bowling mark, even during spells of 15 or more overs. A team man, an inspirational man. Goodbye, Makhaya. South Africa says thank you. Well, I do.

Bryan O'Driscoll has been declared fit to play in the Ireland-South Africa test this weekend. So if John Smit and the South African team turns their back under instruction from the referee, he'll be able to score just like Ronan O'Gara (no I am totally not over it).


CHINA AND INTERNATIONAL
China's go-to position regarding other people's affairs is usually to let governments run ther own countries and to stay out, so it is no surprise that Beijing has rejected Washington's offer to host trilateral talks with China, the USA and Japan over the Diayou islands - which both China and Japan claim are theirs. How the USA thinks it should have influence in this is beyond me. I agree with Beijing that this is a dispute between Japan and China. And it would be hard for the US to be objective when one of the squabblers is one of its mates. That being said, I can't see this being reported in the NY Times, so it is possible that China just made this story up to paint the US a funny colour.

China doesn't expect the Democrats trouncing to have any effect on Sino-US ties, even though Beijing reckons US domestic policy will change a lot. It will be interesting to see how the rise of China affects US contentment, with more Tea Party nationalists and right-wing Republicans in key government positions. Full of drama. YAY!

David Cameron, prime minister of the United Kingdom is popping over to visit China next week and he's bringing along Chancellor George Osborne AND Vince Cable. So Nick Clegg is being left to run the country on his own? Bloody brave.

HONG KONG
Here's some nice drama. An ex-cop has been accused of killing his lover (who was dating some other German chap) in a taxi after her body was found in the sea. This is notable because the (ex) pair met up in Sheung Wan before the copper strangled her and put her body in the boot. Sheung Wan is where we were living last week. Bar gruesome taxi murders, it's a really lovely area and we'll take you there when you come and visit.


There's nothoing else very interesting in the papers today. I miss the South China Morning Post (which I forgot to buy this morning). Expect better tomorrow.

Hong Kong news 27 October

Today, as budgets are limited (we spent the extra money on booze) we rely solely on the South China Morning Post (SCMP), that mouthpiece regurgitating every fleck of spittle emanating from Hu Jintao's imperious mouth.


SPORT
I am doing the sport first today, as there actually is some news, and South Africa features. Now I know stuff all about horse racing, but the newspaper seems to be very happy that a South African jockey, Anton Marcus, is going to be riding in the Cathay Pacific International Jockey's Championship at Happy Valley Racecourse in December. He will be the first South African flag bearing participant in this race, although a chap called Douglas Whyte from South Africa has oft competed here under the Hong Kong flag. It seems from a small editorial on sport page 2 that South Africans have been very successful here, all representing differing nations though. The paper goes on to say that our nation has made a huge contrbution to Hong Kong racing. This is all pretty cool, because Hong Kong is the most horse-racing befok place I have ever been. So it is BIG NEWS!

The Wallabies and the All Blacks are set to lock horns in Hong Kong on Saturday in a Bledisloe Cup match being touted as a mere preparation match before the World Cup next year. There is absolutely no new angle on this whatsoever.

Paul the Octopus went to calamari heaven. Boohoo. I'm so fucking sad.

CHINA AND INTERNATIONAL
Feel for Indonesians. Last week reports surfaced of torture being carried out on random citizens who don't give two shits about politics. Yesterday 113 people were killed by the combination of a 7.5 magnitude earthquake, a tsunami and a volcanic eruption. Interestingly, a friend of mine travelling back from Australia was on a plane which had to make an emergency landing in Jakarta. All African passport holders were forced to remain on the plane while it was being fixed (while the others sauntered nto the airport) for fear of them gaining illegal entry into Indonesia (because of the hordes of South Africans making their way there?!). Give me South Africa any day. At least you can fight off criminals. Good luck beating a volcano with a cricket bat.

There's this blind lawyer who pissed the Chinese government off and him and his whole family have been placed under house arrest. The USA has now decided that this doesn't sit well with them and have instructed their ambassador to go and check out the conditions in which he lives. I expect the Chinese embassy in Washington DC to send a delegation to Gitmo forthwith.

Anti-Japan protests continue in China with the city of Chongqing joining the fray. Basically, China and Japan both reckon they own the same set of islands. A few weeks ago a Japanese vessel arrested the captain of a Chinese vessel within the boundaries of the islands and it caused big diplomatic kak and sparked off protests in both countries. The ones in China seem not to be dying down though with Chengdu, Mianyan, Deyang, Sichuan, Langzhou, Hainan and five others, all having loads of folks marching down the street smashing up Japan-made cars and singing about how much they hate Japan.

China has unleashed a new high-speed railway which will cover the 200km between Shanghai and Hangzhou in about 45 minutes. Although the train has been measured doing 420kph (a world train speed record, from what the SCMP understands), it will operate at around 350kph.

That big-ass French public strike and protest against raising the age of retirement from 60 to 62 seems like it will become law as it was passed - 171 votes to 150 - by the Senate. It will go to the National Assembly next where it is expected to pass there easily. Expect lots of angry French people. No, I mean angrier than normal.

We feature again: South Africa is set to build what will hopefully become the world's biggest solar power plant at a cost of R200 billion. For that amount of money we could build a big enough fucking hotel to house all 50 million of us. As things stand, California is building the biggest one first which should power 750 000 homes, but it is expected that ours will eventually be 5 times the size of theirs. The newspaper alleges that 83% of South African houses have electricity. Really?

Hillary Clinton has added a stop in China to her 2-week Asia visit scheduled sometime soon. I think Hu Jintao might have a family emergency right at that time.

HONG KONG
You may have read recently that Singapore wants to buy the Australian stock exchange or some such shit. Well it's freaked Hong Kong out and now they're planning in trading for an extra hour every day - with the start of the trading day being moved half an hour earlier and another half hour removed from the 2-hour lunch break. The real consternation seems to be whether lunch will go from midday to 1.30pm, or 12.30pm to 2pm. The lives of rich people are just never easy, are they?

A poll by HSBC has identified climate change as the greatest care of Hong Kongers. Odd considering this is the least green city I have ever been to. It's not as though anyone cares enough to even pretend (like they do in Cape Town) to recycle or conserve energy. I'd imagine that HSBC interviewed wealthy people (green policy's largest target market) and not those who have to worry about money or housing or where their next beer is coming from.

23 samples of the plastic wrapping around a Halloween headband have been tested for safety by the HK SAR government. Conclusions thereof indicate that children could suffocate on it. Yes. It took this for them to realise that children can choke on plastic. I swear this is an actual news story.

Check this other cracking headline: "Diet, exercise and regular checkups are the key to staying healthy".

The Island (which is called Lantau)

(Click on picture thumbnails to see a larger version)

From what I understand, Lantau is the largest of the islands in Hong Kong, (bar Kowloon which is on the island of Asia - somewhat larger. At least three times as big.) and provides the one thing you cannot get on Hong Kong Island: space.

On Saturday we tootled off to the pier to catch a ferry to Lantau (all of R30 to get there) which is about a half an hour journey. As we were both suffering immense hangovers, it became a 30-minute exercise in not hurling as we bounced from wave to wave caused by the multitude of boats traversing around Hong Kong harbour.

We were glad for the presence of these, even though we didn't have to use them: We landed and found a map to take us to a certain beach we'd read about in the guide book. After doing a small and accidental loop we realised we were on the wrong road and realigned our compasses to get us on the right one (what we really did was look at the signs which pointed us perfectly in the right direction).

And so our 5-kilometre walk began. Up a goddam hill. After a quick whinge session I began following Mike (who has been blessed with gazelle like abilities - gravity doesn't actually have much of an impact on him so hills are just like normal ground) on this road, which slunk through the island forest.



Lantau is beautiful. It is large and pretty devoid of buildings, with trees gracing the interior of the island and beaches denoting the exterior. We walked for about 7 kilometres (turns out someone read the book wrong) with regular stops so I could smoke in hangover peace while Mike bounced around like someone had just replaced his batteries.

Here are our attitudes to walking 7km in the most humid place in the world:
Him:

Me:

Nature was to avenge me though. While I am terrified of creepy crawlies and rats and stuff like that, Mike (possibly more sensibly) is scared of big things that can break you when they stand on you, like cattle. And as we rounded yet another bend in the road, a bull shaped like a battering ram appeared right in front of us. We were both a bit startled so we forgot to take a picture, but it was a short and squat - almost in proportion with a buffalo, only smaller. Mike leapt across the road like someone had stuffed his backpack with Superman's cape which had accidentally turned on. To be fair I wasn't far behind and, dodging the fastest buses known to man (seriously, I am sure Hong Kong buses are driven by Nikki Lauda), we retreated behind a gate on the other side as this pit-bull like bovine walked on by.

What seemed like 20km later (was actually like 1.5km) we finally came upon what we sought: the beach - a stunning barrier separating the forest from the (surprisingly) clean seawater. We finally got to kick off our shoes and walk barefoot across the fine sand which scattered beneath our feet as we strolled down, passing Die Stoep, a South Africa-themed restaurant. Now, what makes a restaurant South African, you may ask. Well, Castle Lager, bobotie and a steak dish with chakalaka were about it. Considering I usually drink Hansa and have never once had a steak with chakalaka, it was surprising that I still felt all proud about being there, but I suppose one does when away from home. I liked and ate bobotie though - so shukria (spelling?) to Muslims in South Africa for creating it, and dankie and xiexie for those South Africans and Hong Kongers for exporting it to these wonderful parts.

One thing about this beach which I have never seen before is cattle residing upon it. I swear, it was like walking through the Transkei - but on a Chinese beach. Yes. Real cows! On a beach! (um, outside a steak restaurant. So we're banking on them selling fresh meat).


Drinking on the beaches in Hong Kong is illegal, but much like in Cape Town, I decided to ignore this ridiculous law created solely for braggarts and sat and (responsibly) slurped on a bottle of red wine while Mike ran up and down the beach.

It then got dark and, rather than risking being hit by a psychotic Hong Kong bus in the shadows, we decided to actually board one. Now, picking the correct bus in Hong Kong is not as simple as it looks, as we have no idea where the bloody things go. And the one we boarded went nowhere near where we wanted to go. In fact it went in the exact opposite direction. This was Mike panic-strickenly finding out where the hell we were going.

Which, luckily, was a route that ended at a tube station (the public transport here is amazing. I am planning a whole post on it) and we were home in about 15 minutes (after an approximate two-hour delay because we wanted to watch a movie).

Some great pics we took in Lantau:

1928km and still not even close

The dead straight roads of the empty Northern Cape. Pic by Simon Williamson.

Well it's been a bloody long trip, but we're finally in Johannesburg after leaving Cape Town on Tuesday afternoon. We broke the trip up into four parts, the first being from Cape Town all the way to Paternoster - all of 150 km. We drove around for a bit there looking for a decent place to stay and came across some spot called Paternoster Dunes, run by one of the most peculiar men of all time. He made it into our good books, though, as the look of severe disappointment on our faces once we'd heard the price earned us a fat discount.

The next day we shot up to Springbok - the idea being that we wanted to use it as the base for exploring Namaqualand - something my grandfather used to do and it always stuck in my mind to pursue one day. Well, because there was no rain this winter, there were no flowers. We also visited Augrabies which only had a tiny stream of water bustling over it, unlike the cascading sloshing I'd seen in pictures. Later in the trip we headed up to Mafikeng as well to see an Anglo-Boer war museum and it was closed. So from the outside it looked like an unspectacular trip, but for the two of us who'd never been through the top of the Northern Cape, it was pretty damn spectacular.

Our trip up the West Coast on a beltingly hot day - we drove about 530km - was our introduction to the Northern Cape as we watched the famed white sand turn Kalahari red. Springbok initially presented a craphole in the middle of nowhere until we found a smart little B&B right in town. We went out to dinner at Springbok's (only) best grillhouse that night and realised the charm this little nook carries. I ate a kilogram of steak and so my name goes up on the wall of the restaurant - Springbok will remember Simon forever - and we retired to the bar in the restaurant for a few whiskies to wash down our meal. It was to choruses from the other patrons in the bar of the k-word intermingled with laughter that reminded me - not that I needed it - that there is a lot of South Africa outside the places I live, and a lot more South Africans other than the ones I know. Pretty sad.

The two of us with Augrabies in the background. Pic by Mike McClelland.

Day three was an epic journey across almost the entire Northern Cape, from Springbok all the way to Kuruman which is near the Northern Cape-North West border. I have driven through the Karoo numerous times, but the Kalahari is a far better example of wide-open spaces. There is literally nothing in the way of your view. Perhaps a rocky outcrop here, the odd small tree there, and loads and loads of nothingness. In fact, there is such a shortage of trees that the weavers in the area build their nests on the telephone poles which stride along the highway. The other surprise was our trip through Upington which I thought was a decent-sized town - the actioned part of the Northern Cape. Well, while it is large enough to be notable, it's half the size of Pietermaritzburg and twice as sleepy. Kuruman is a complete dump (hosting the rudest population of anywhere I have ever) been with the only attraction in town being The Eye of Kuruman, a spring which allegedly pumps out 20-odd million litres of crystal clear water per day. We stopped to see it and watched a little trickle built to look like a waterfall - creating the effect of a tiny waterfall. 20-million litres my arse. If I'd pissed in the fountain it would have doubled the amount of water in it.



Our B&B in Kuruman was an inspired choice though and was everything that Kuruman wasn't - it contained FRIENDLY PEOPLE. We ended up drinking R180 worth of whiskey at the bar (doesn't sound like much, but it cost R9 a shot) and within hours we had new friends-for-life in Kuruman.

Our last day saw us set off for Joburg, but via Mafikeng which was only about 60km out of our way. We didn't stay long because the place we wanted to see was shut so we decided to go and see the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg instead. We got bored of that idea about 100km into the trip and just set the GPS to take us to Rivonia. This detoured us through Lichtenburg, with the GPS attempting to get us down a non-existent highway. Sometimes technology is a curse, and poor Sam (my GPS' name) dealt with a verbal rant from me, heavily decorated with words which shall not be repeated here. Eventually he sorted himself out and guided us into Joburg via the West Rand - or somewhere around there. I'm from the northern suburbs and therefore retain the right to not have to know anything outside the area demarcated by Dainfern, Monte Casino, Witkoppen Road and Rivonia Road, with occasional trips to visit the kugels in Sandton City.

The car held up, we held up, and bar Mike having to squeeze his bladder with an internal clamp by the end, the trip in was pretty plain sailing. It was grand to see parts of the country we hadn't seen before, to see the utter expanse of the Northern Cape after climbing the stunning West Coast. Great to feel proper heat again which sated my resentment of the weather in CT just before we left while the rest of the country was celebrating summer.

It's off to Hong Kong on Wednesday evening. We're pretty set, we think. It seems like just the other day I started preparing to leave Cape Town. The time has flown like a concorde on biofuel (this simile is relevant for our greenie Cape Town friends).

Thank you Cape Town for a great year. Thank you Joburg for sending us off.

Hello, Hong Kong!

Cheers folks,
Simon.