Morning dawned bright and colourful and spent an early night after our amazing Wolfberg hike with my sister and the family.
After a leisurely cup of coffee, overlooking the flowery valley where we woke up, we had to get going.
We needed to fill our water tanks, so at the next mountain stream crossing, Stefaan connected hoses and pumps and while waiting, we had our second cup of coffee!
Filling up with crystal clear water straight from the ice cold stream… one couldn’t have wished for fresher!
After our fill-up we continued towards Ceres and Stellenbosch to Gordons Bay to meet up with friends Gavin and Lee.
As we systematically left the Cederberg Wilderness, the rocky mountains changed to a landscape of dams and fertile fields and took us through the never-ending orchards of Ceres.
This is fruit world: as far as the eye can see it’s orchards, orchards, orchards. In different stages of planting and growing, open air or under cover… just looking at these orchards makes the mind boggle at quantities.
Just south of Ceres we traveled on the Mitchells Pass through the Ceres Mountain Fynbos Nature Reserve. There is a railway line that comes from deep into the valley, climbs up the slope, crosses the road and then travels upward onto the mountain slope on the other side of the valley. I guess it doesn’t operate often enough to require a boom or warning lights! Its historical Toll House , now turned into a coffeeshop, sits cosy and inviting at the side of the road.
Out of the blue we saw an example of entrepreneurship at its best : a mobile coffeeshop set up in the green fields miles away from the next town. Traffic and the 10 ton truck made it kinda difficult to slam on the brakes, make a U-turn and go and have coffee, but we wish them the best of luck in their venture! Kudos to you!
And then… the orchards of Ceres lay behind us and we hit the vineyards of Worcester and Stellenbosch. Virtually the whole way to Gordon’s Bay is one long non-stop succession of vineyards and wine estates.
Guess what would we be doing while in Cape Town!
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Orchards and vineyards