*a person who enjoys himself or herself - Collins English Dictionary[1] Saint-Antonin > Carcassonne > Collioure Yes, we did eventually visit Carcassonne - spent a whole day there and, yes, we did enjoy it. Even though there might have been shades of Disney, as per taunts from mates[2], displaying only a light shade of green. Living with our Camper I'll get to Carcassonne in a bit but first a taste of our early experiences of three adults in a "4-berther". It had seemed appropriate on the first night that Shan and I shared the master suite while Kinks had exclusive use of the penthouse. This initial experience had demonstrated that the upper level had a wider flat surface than the "master suite", which shared much of its surface area with a surprisingly ample kitchenette. I think we got through two nights in the original configuration. Two factors on the second night prompted a rethink. The first was that the electrically reclining rear seats were in four sections - two seat backs and two squabs - none of which aligned on a common plane after the electronic wizardry had taken place. The second was that we had our only night in a municipal campsite[3] at stop #2. We'll just say that the ablution facilities were less than welcoming. This would not have been a huge problem in its own right had they not been situated a LONG WAY from the parking. Observant readers might spot the telltale signs in one of the photos below (Kinks, being a veteran camper had also managed to coach her sister). Above (Clockwise from top left): We beat a hasty retreat after a rapid cleanup; so hasty perhaps that we incurred our first speeding offence (a little more about speeding in France in the text below); Kinks and Shan shared the penthouse for the remainder of the trip; I managed to find a sequence of furrows in the lowered daytime seating. Speeding in France - don't do it! There was a time when the term laissez-faire seemed to have been invented for speed-limit observation in France. In recent years of visiting this wonderful country it had occurred to us that French drivers had become significantly more law-abiding. In the past decade we had driven in France on many occasions in our cumbersome 7.2 m motorhome in which speeding wasn't really an option. Even on the trip down to Charente in our VW EV we had been protected by the car driving itself and obeying all speed limits without our even being aware of it doing so. Now I don't wilfully speed (not anymore anyway) but our unfamiliarly sporty Mercedes camper was rarin' to go. I'm sure it had more than adequate cruise control but, in our short tenure with the vehicle, trying to decipher its finer intricacies were beyond us and our command of German. My command of German had an instant shot in the arm when, after our return to the UK, Indie Campers helpfully passed a wadge of fines on to us at a price of €25 a pop. Indie's French operation had rented us a van registered in Germany. The fee for grassing us up at our UK address obviously didn't include translating the correspondence from German. The original French would've been preferable. Our French is/was better than our German. Thankfully M. Google came up trumps and I had admitted guilt and paid the fines before the polite communications in English (example in pics above) arrived at our home address. At 55% of the cost of each actual fine, I'm not sure Indie added much value on that one! Fingers crossed we didn't speed again on that particular journey (from Saint-Antonin - Carcassonne). It's potentially difficult to tell but I'm pretty sure that the actual "Ticketing Officer 442912" was most likely an Automatic Number Plate Recognition camera and therefore pretty instantaneous. Fair dos: speed does kill and I should'a been more vigilant. Carcassonne (and camping there) We had found the dream campsite for Carcassonne - walkable to the historical Medieval City - and we found the entrance easily enough. Checking in was all high-tech, not a person in sight, and we were allocated a parking bay number and ushered through. It was only when we had painstakingly reversed on to our site that it began to occur to us that there were no services whatsoever. You got a parking place and that was it. We didn't even have an onboard loo (which we had had in our dearly departed motorhome (a.k.a. "Campy"). My dear wife was in a tizz because she had navigated us there. An easy mistake that anyone could have made as it turns out. A quick reference to Google showed that the site we had booked was literally next door. We managed to get out of the glorified car park and presented ourselves next door to Camping de la Cité where there was an actual person on reception. I determined to cast myself as a friendly, reasonable ignoramus who had made a stupid mistake. Threw myself at her mercy. It was the correct thing to do. Not only did she reassure me that very little harm had been done but also assured me that she would be able to deduct the (not insubstantial) fee that "next-door" had charged us from our new home. Boy was Shan relieved. The new home was a little private plot of grass surrounded by hedges, with all the normal services, and in close proximity to the sanitary facilities. Result. We finally chilled out drinking wine and checking out the old city in the distance through the trees Off to Disneyland ??? It was a decent mile's hike from Camping de la Cité to the Cité Médiéval but a pleasant one, some of it along the River Aude, while the grandeur on the mount gradually revealed itself in increasing detail. Above: Carcassonne is an excellent example of a medieval fortified city whose massive defences were constructed on walls dating from Late Antiquity. It is of exceptional importance by virtue of the restoration work carried out in the second half of the 19th century by Viollet-le-Duc[4], which had a profound influence on subsequent developments in conservation principles and practice[5]. I am not proposing to go into a detailed discourse on our day at Carcassonne as it has attracted many academic tomes, evidently being the largest medieval fortified city in Europe, has been adopted by Unesco and was restored by the same bloke who did up the Notre Dame in Paris. Links to some descriptions are provided[6]. Of course the fact that M Viollet-le-Duc had masterminded the renovations of both the Notre-Dame in Paris and Carcassonne's Cité did give us some cause for a little polite mirth. Book now for yiz Double Disney Date, doubters - we'll throw in a free Carcassonne game. Nuff said. Our personal narrative will be mostly left to a picture story with photos taken by Shan and me ... Above: The scale and magnificence of it all - (clockwise from top left) the grand entrance; the outside walls; a side entrance; the inner château partially built into the Cité ramparts reached by its own bridge from the rest of the town, itself within the outer walls. Above; and yes there is some tat, thankfully mostly crowded around the entrance ... could it be there for the intrepid bucket-listers? Above: there is more upmarket stuff, mostly clustered around the hotel Above: In the midst of it all, the colour red kept popping up - on a visitor doing much the same things as we were - and highlighting a towel and the fact that people actually live there. Above: There is the grand Basilique des Saints Nazaire et Celse, with its towering elegance and gorgeous stained glass windows. Above: and then there is the city within the city with its gazillion breathtaking views ... here is just a sample because one really needs to go there for oneself. It is difficult to describe the overall experience without actually experiencing it ... even the first photograph in these seven (chosen at random) shows the attention to light and detail, continued in the more modern additions. The penultimate picture in the sequence above (i.e. the one of people strolling along the open ramparts) reminded us of the game that many of the visitors in our group seemed to be playing. We were absolutely complicit in this having been encouraged to part with our money for the last tour of the day of the château and ramparts. It had taken a while to process our payments before being held up at the entrance by the guide for the session. It seemed he wanted us to move off in a bunch but then provided very little actual information or guidance. So about 20-30 of us moseyed off at our own pace, which was absolutely fine until our "guide" kept popping up to chivvy us along. Seems we were overstaying our welcome. A member of staff had ordered us out of the château and on to the ramparts. From that moment on our "guide" started locking doors behind us as we went along. The three of us weren't the only ones who were mildly irritated, so that many of our tacit co-conspirators started to hover to look at things and where possible, doubled back into the odd turret when we thought we'd missed something. Las chicas even paused for the pair of the "tat" photos further back. Childish, I know, but he was being pretty officious, popping up sporadically and hectoring us to move along whilst adding no value whatsoever. C'est la vie. It was a fab tour enjoyed by many and endured by one. We hoped he hadn't missed his tea. Disney or not Disney What do you think Kinks, is it Disney? I don't know Shan, is it Disney? These walls are very thick, we can sit inside them. Maybe it's not Disney? Above: Or maybe it is Disney - after all French interpretations of those theme parks do allow some discrete purveyors of beverages around the periphery? Farewell to Carcassonne Above: (top row) as evening draws in we leave La Cité via a side entrance/exit, heading back to the River Aude; (middle) not everyone is a tourist - we meet a delightful family of Mum with a baby in a pushchair and a little boy determined to help with their dog on a lead, in the right hand frame visitors are still arriving; (bottom) the fortifications light up as the light fades on the "modern" city down below, with its own cathedral in the background.. So, am I glad we went there? That is undeniable. This is one of those things that has to be seen for oneself. M Viollet-de-Luc may have embellished it here and there but isn't that the way with so many edifices that have existed for so long. All over the world. These things are organic. Down to the Med - a first sighting for Kerry (Kinks) at Collioure We started our day in the familiar way when moving on from a campsite; clearing up and carting no longer needed detritus to the campsite recycling bins. On the way back we peered over the fence into the parking lot that we initially thought was going to be our home for two nights. We spotted the behemoth (or maybe the French would call it Le Mastodonte) pictured below - we guessed its occupants would be pretty self-contained as far as services and home comforts were concerned. My heart flirted with camper van envy but only until mid-morning. We had a choice to get from Carcassonne to Collioure. Down the boring old Autoroute (Motorway/Freeway) network (A61/A9) to Perpignan and our destination beyond. Or we could take the "scenic route", sometimes a euphemism for legging it across lesser roads (in France this would have added benefit of avoiding tolls). With a bit of imagination we could draw an imaginary line via Limoux and plunging into the unknown at Couiza, traversing some Pyrénées Orientales before eventually emerging near the coast South of Perpignan. This would optimistically take us just short of 3 hours to cover a similar distance as the Autoroute, which would take half that time. Stuff it, we were on a road trip. We chose the long way around. At first our choice of route was pretty enough with the Aude taking us up some scenic river valleys. Then we took the road less travelled. Initially it was a bit more of the same but then it started getting serious when we turned on to the D10 at la Savonnerie del Mouly. No more behemoth envy. Not even any residual pangs for our recently retired Burstner. We had reached the Gorges de Galamus. The road become the D7 there ... Above (l to r): Le Mastodonte pretty difficult to manoeuvre in mountainous terrain; even our Burstner would've had to turn back here - maybe retrace 90 km back to the Autoroute network at Carcassonne. We were entering the Pyrenees (and thus Catalonia) right here. Stopping to take it all in, we couldn't help noticing that the Ermitage Saint-Antoine de Galamus was beckoning. I immediately regretted drawing it to the attention of my female companions. Of course they were going to want to go there. And why not. Just because I was still suffering the random effects of Long Covid, they needed to make the most of our trip. Above: temptation started with the information board at the top before we crawled along the ledge in our campervan, the gorge a forbidding cleft, omnipresent on our right. Chapeau to my companions for completing the full Monty while I chickened out at the top and contemplated l'Ermitage from the top. The last 3 pics in the sequence show the entrance to a short tunnel that emerged above the buildings in the middle frame in which there was a musician playing a guitar before moving on to the small chapel hewn from rock in the last frame. First we had to traverse the scariest bit of the road, a ledge along the side of the vertiginous gorge. Luckily it was a quiet time of year and the nightmare of having to negotiate around oncoming vehicles thankfully eluded us for the 1.8 km required to get to the pivotal next car park. Les filles courageuses made their descent and returned after what seemed like an eternity, bubbling over with enthusiasm. A one-off experience. One which the necessarily condensed text in the blog cannot fully capture. The only remedy, if you're in the area of the Gorges de Galamus, follow in les filles footsteps and absorb the full experience. This, of course is why we liked to choose the road less travelled. In this case we wouldn't have even known what was there had we not taken a bit of a "plunge" into the unknown. Above (clockwise from top left); the most elementary of open/close signs for the Hermitage; there is always a bit of a hippyish element at sites such as these - keeping them alive takes a certain kind of commitment; I was very happy not to have arrived at this point in anything more imposing than our campervan; anyway my allegiances had already shifted from Le Mastodonte to this nifty blue number - the hippy romance emerging ...
We reached our campsite on the Med eventually ... not before passing the entrance numerous times as if we were attached to a piece of elastic. Satnavs are great but not always, especially when one's destination is on the opposite side of a railway line parallel to the highway. It wasn't to be the last time our satnav went into paroxysms ... Coming next
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A local expert undertaking the serious business of choosing fresh oysters for his party partaking in brunch at Villebois-Lavalette in Charente in Southern France. The department adjoins Charente-Maritime with its renowned Atlantic oyster beds. With our initial nail-biting ordeal over we succumbed to luxury for a few days, knowing full well that Sunday would arrive only too soon and we'd have to shoehorn our belongings into a camper van for the midsection of our joll. In the mean time we allowed ourselves to succumb to the incomparable impromptu delights brought by the local knowledge of friends[2]. Charente The Charente department takes its name from the eponymous river, which is the first major watercourse going North from the vast basin of tributaries feeding into the Gironde estuary, home to the port of Bordeaux. There are many attractions in Charente including Cognac, the historic town of Aubeterre-sur-Dronne, the above-mentioned Villebois and our friends (and cousins to some of us) Craig and Ann Eriksen, who were determined we would have a splendid stay in and around their new home. Aubeterre is a singularly attractive hillside town that no doubt becomes extremely busy during the French summer holidays but retained just enough of its buzz into early October when we got there. It is made up of terraces groaning with enticing places to drink and eat. It is also home to an extraordinary subterranean cathedral, which I'll come back to later. Above (clockwise from top left): terraces of Aubetterre; the town's ubiquitous (still privately owned) chateau that sits atop an extraordinary troglodyte construction (more of this later); a quick hug with the sister-in-law after a delicious pop-up-pizza. Back to brunch OK, so who (Craig and Ann excluded) has heard of Villebois-Lavalette? For that matter, who has had fresh oysters and prawns, together with a bottle of Muscadet, for brunch[3]? All consumed under the oak beams of a 17th century covered market (hall)? Actually, Shan still hasn't had the oyster bit, which meant all the more for the rest of us. I think she slightly regrets that now. Without the local knowledge and our French-speaking host it might have been a little challenging to assemble our feast. The oysters were plain to see but required Ann's French to obtain the exact size and quantity we'd be slurping for our brunch. While Ann and I were choosing our huîtres, Craig was obtaining a pile of crevettes from a pop-up vendor across the street and then putting in a request for a bottle of Muscadet from the traditional French pub opposite. This was delivered to our table in the hall with the expectation that it would be paid for at the end of our repast. Other people, who seemed to be locals, were performing a similar process at the tables surrounding ours. The selection of oysters was a particularly serious endeavour and not to be conducted in haste. For example, Ann preferred the smaller size 5 bivalve molluscs on the grounds of taste whereas old greedy guts here opted for the size 6s. If I'd known the difference at the time and been able to articulate proficiently in French, I may have questioned whether we were about to consume some of Label Rouge Marennes Oléron slippery fellas or just the common or seaweed garden Charente-Maritime variety. Happily, whatever they were that Ann chose on our behalf they were exceedingly delicious, as were the prawns washed down with Muscadet. Above (l to r): Ann positions herself to place our order; our local expert continues to build his selection; finally Ann gets to choose while another local fellow eyes her progress critically. Let the feast begin ... Above (top row, l-r): Kinks, Craig and Ann tucking in; going strong; the pub's across the road, do we need another bottle of Muscadet? (bottom row, l- r): Shan thinks we've had enough already; In the pub settling up. Troglodytes go to heaven I am always surprised when visiting France to find how many relics there are of troglodyte infrastructure. It's kind of expected in places such as Cappadocia in Turkey but not so much in France despite the fact that many troglodyte dwellings were active there at least until the 19th century. Perhaps even later according to local popular history that suggests many troglodytes were moved to state homes to save the French government the stigma of housing 20th century cavemen. Now, as is always the way, some of the cave homes, particularly in the Loire Valley, have been smartened up and occupied by artists and even the odd tourist. But that's not really what this story's about. It's about another Charente gem, the subterranean church of St. Jean. Hewn from solid rock in the 12th century, At 20m high internally, it is the largest subterranean church in Europe and, whether you're a churchy person or not, it cannot fail to take your breath away. The structure's sheer scale and the intricacy and size of its cherished artefacts can really only be viewed in situ to fully understand the undertaking, probably influenced by Christian pilgrims and, in turn, their travels through regions such as Cappadocia. When you go to visit it yourself, it is also worth knowing that the church of St Jean was hidden for centuries by a rock fall and only rediscovered in the 1950s. In the meantime the château depicted earlier in this blog was constructed on the rocky knoll above. Above (clockwise from top): It is difficult to comprehend, standing facing the cliff surmounted by the hidden château, what lies beneath - the humble portico shows there might be something but nothing gives away the splendour within; storeys high, the 20m high inner cavern in the next 3 pictures reveal the scale and attention to detail hewn out over perhaps 5 years 900 years ago; the last picture shows the crypt, set under the main edifice. The camper van beckons The time had come for us to depart from the comfort of Chez Eriksen and collect our next 12 nights' accommodation and transport from Indie Campers in Bordeaux. It would be a long day culminating at the start of a short introduction for Kinks to the Dordogne. Our VW would enjoy a well-earned rest in Saint Romain, Charente while we adopted more conventional diesel power for the next 2,000 km, taking in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic at San Sebtastián, travelling via the Pyrénées. Our first night "under canvas" took place a stone's throw from the Dordogne on the edge of Castelnaud-la-Chapelle, a handy stopping point to give Kinks a sniff of Château Beynac. The quiet campsite with its grassy meadow centrepiece was a good place to kick the tyres on our first night and to wave at a succession of hot air balloons taking advantage of a perfect late summer's evening Above: Balloon gets a hot air boost directly above us; first dop[4] in (or, more accurately outside) our home for the next 12 days. Sipping a glass of wine in the sunshine with the occasional roar of a balloon hot-air boost was probably as good a place as any to digress a bit and contemplate France and its châteaux. There are châteaux and there are châteaux. The fact that some place is named Château Finklefoggitt is no guarantee that it'll be a grand edifice. It would be stretching the imagination only a little to take you back to episode #1 of this adventure to admire Château d'En Croûton and then head off not very far South-East to Versailles and then back to Caen before dropping down to Chambord and Carcassonne to witness the diverse collection of stately homes and castles scattered across France. Basically, every town of any size at all has its château. In some places the town defines the château and in others, such as Beynac, the château defines the town. The Dordogne rivals the Loire in its diversity of châteaux and of troglodyte accommodations Castles and rivers Château Beynac dominates the small town that hugs a grand curve on the Dordogne river. We were to spend the morning there but first we needed to climb the hill. Shan and I'd done it before but it was Kinks' first Dordogne experience. This blog is not really the place to spew out the facts about the castle but you may wish to branch off for a few minutes if you want a little more info. As a tantalising taster, Château Beynac was the home of Richard the Lionheart for a bit from at the end of the 12th Century. Above (l to r): Setting off for the climb to the top; grim determination; Kinks is nearly there. Above: some perspectives of the Castle including the sweep of the plain below illustrating how strategically the fortress is placed to defend from frontal attacks. One can also gain a perspective of how it might appear from afar but become more and more intimidating the closer you get. Nowadays, of course, it is difficult to travel anywhere on mainland Europe without evidence of things flying over. Vapour trails pretty much eclipse migrating birds and this area of the Dordogne seemed particularly criss-crossed by them, perhaps because of its proximity to Toulouse. More rivers and and precious friends No road trips are ever as special as the ones that are punctuated by visits to wonderful friends. Sometimes these friends are seldom seen but the friendships are rekindled immediately. We had visited Garth and Meg Seneque in their picturesque adopted town, Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val in the Tarn-et-Garonne[5], five years earlier. Before that we hadn't seen them for decades since we had been relatively close neighbours in Durban, South Africa. The Seneques had always been academics and were still doing stuff at a serious international level in 2017 despite evidence to the contrary in the picture below: The frivolity of my unsuccessful attempt to decapitate Garth (much to the apparent amusement of Shan and Meg) went way back to the early 80s and the first time we had them around for dinner in Durban. To be honest, the two of us had been a bit intimidated by the intellectual combo we'd be entertaining that evening, something like 40 years previously. We needn't have worried. How the subject of Salvador Dali came up, none of us can remember. Probably one of us demonstrating that we knew the name of a famous artist. Someone then volunteered the information that Dali had been a great fan of farting and had, indeed, written about it in The Diary of a Genius. The evening was a success. Several books of lavatorial humour were produced and drinks were drunk. Much as they were again in October 2022. I don't think that farts were mentioned the evening we met in a local café but Meg's recent PhD was a source for congratulation and celebration. The sad news for us was that the Seneques were in the middle of packing up and moving closer to their grandchildren in Australia. They still both work in academia and related activities but on an international stage where being in the centre of things in Europe is no longer as relevant as it once might have been. Above: perhaps Garth does look a wee bit apprehensive at the prospect of me producing another carving knife but the others are clearly delighted to be reunited (Kinks was also great friends with the Seneques in the 80s). There was a tinge of sadness to our farewell that night. Australia is a long way away (although maybe, one day ... our son-in-law Andrew's Dad lives there ...) Shan's whimsical picture of night falling in Saint-Antonin with the moon highlighting the cliffs on the other side of the Aveyron river seemed to set the tone for the conclusion of this blog episode.
One thing is for sure: if you travel longitudinally through France, especially in the West, there are many grand rivers. In 24 hours we crossed the Dordogne, the Lot and the Aveyron. Tomorrow we would cross the Tarn en route to Carcassonne. Coming next
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*a person who enjoys himself or herself - Collins English Dictionary[1] "But I paid you a subscription for a non-Tesla ... it's on your app, Elon." "Tough shit earthling ..." "How're you getting to Southern France?" friends and acquaintances asked. "In our electric car," resulted invariably in sceptical eye shifts and the occasional shuffling of feet. Did this influence or inform our decision to embark on the required 1,100 kilometres from Faringdon, Oxfordshire to Saint-Romain, Charente? Influence? No. Inform? Definitely, even if only to ensure we could prove the doubters wrong. We are quite proud of our VW ID3. We are aware of detractors but have no doubt the environmental benefits outweigh the costs. Now to make it work. A gazillion hours of YouTube videos later did little to eliminate our nervousness but it did forewarn us of potential pitfalls. A big challenge was the lack of a unified front from any of the multiplicity of energy vendors plying their wares. Zap-Map, Pod Point, Izivia, abetterrouteplanner (ABRP), Google Maps, Apple Car Play, VW's own maps, Chargemap, IONITY and Tesla to name but a few. Each one adding a bit of information here and there and sending us up the garden path there and here. Perhaps unfairly, but Tesla got up my nose the most. Early on I had watched a video in which a Dutch fellow drove his VW ID from the Netherlands into France via Belgium and seemed to have got it sussed after a few initial hiccoughs. Basically, Tesla offers a monthly membership to non-Tesla owners to use its fast charging network. This had the added inducement of banks of Tesla chargers at both ends of the Eurotunnel. What could possibly go wrong (you may have heard this from me before)? I paid my money and became a non-Tesla-driving Tesla member. Not being quite as gung-ho as you might imagine, Shan and I shuffled off to the one Tesla charging station within a million miles of our house for a practice run. It didn't work. In a rather cavalier way we brushed this aside trying to convince ourselves that Tesla hadn't upgraded the backwoods yet. Eurotunnel at Folkestone would be a different kettle of fish (Hopefully not literally!). Nope. Standing disconsolate in the biting wind in the car park, a lovely Eurotunnel employee came to see how we were getting on. We told her the truth. "Have you tried our free one," she asked. Things were looking up. We shifted our gaze to where the Eurotunnel charger was standing proud and vacant. What you need to know about charging an EV At this point in the narrative it is probably appropriate to give the briefest possible note of EV requirements, if only to make things a little clearer for EV novices:
Applying this knowledge to an actual journey Bearing all that in mind, we'll return to our friendly PR lady. We transferred our car from Planet Elon to the shiny new free Eurotunnel charger. It all connected painlessly and we repaired to the terminal for a sarnie and ginger beer. We could check progress on our mobile phones while we got out of the chill wind. Disappointment was an understatement. I forget the exact output of that charger but it was less than we were accustomed to at home. At that rate we'd be at the terminal for the rest of the day (and maybe even beyond). We decided to chance our luck on the other side of the tunnel (after all the car would sit on the train for the journey sous la Manche[3]). Yeah well, we couldn't find the chargers at the other side, could we? We limped (the slower one goes the further the charge will take you) an agonising 100 km down the A16 to the Aire de la Baie de Somme just outside Abbeville. There lay a bank of Ionity chargers facing off from a similar bank of Tesla chargers on the the opposite side of the road. We were on our own. These things are entirely self-service and help is a phone call away (and who knows how far that is?). We went for the Ionity. After some cack-handling we eventually got ourselves hooked up successfully to a 50 KW charger ... so a bit less than an hour to charge our car fully. After walking aimlessly around the Aire for what seemed like an eternity we resolved to stop the process when the car was 90% full. The Tesla <=> Ionity face-off at the Aire de la Baie de Somme. Note the white Elonmobile sneaking off in the far middle-ground[4]. We decided to pop across the road to check out the Tesla big boys opposite. You guessed it - we could not connect. And after that we discovered another EV challenge. The faster chargers are almost exclusively on Autoroutes. We were unaccustomed to Autoroutes having avoided them for decades in our petrol/diesel vehicles. We soon learned that returning to an Autoroute was pretty fraught if you happen to take the wrong exit from an aire on to the highway. Once you have chosen an entry point you can be committed for tens of kilometres. Fifty km later we were more or less back where we started. We contemplated topping up our charge but we were by that time exhausted by our vicissitudes and headed as directly as we could to Vascœuil, our little haven described in #1 of this blog. There were two chinks of light in this charging malarkey. With a little more time on your hands you could use the 22 KW local charging network. Every small town in France seemed to have one. Perhaps 22 may have been a little optimistic but, if you could leave your vehicle hooked up overnight, a full charge was easily possible. Big LiDL stores were also to prove a bit of a godsend. They provided free charging for the first half-hour when shopping at one of their shops and more time if you were willing to pay the extra. They also popped up in more obscure locations along with the local 22 KW facilities. They did, however, demand a fairly intimate knowledge of technical French. We sort of overcame this setback by resorting to trial and error - although I did at one stage fear that our little car was going to be attached to the Vascœuil charger forever and will never completely understand how I eventually managed to disconnect it. This particular LiDL was a bit of a godsend, found a little more by luck than design. It did take an hour(ish) but we left with a full tank (so to speak). I was also able to perform a critical analysis of the carpark gabions while dying for a pee. Some slightly superior (to aires) grub was also a bit of a compensation and bladder diversion - the advantage of aires being that they do have loos. Charles de Gaulle (CDG, Paris) But I have skipped an episode. We weren't going to get from Vascœuil to CDG and back to collect Kinks without a top up. This didn't seem to be a major obstacle that couldn't be overcome. There were apparently plenty of charge points highlighted on one of the manifold maps we were using and we imagined that, France being one of the foremost EV benefactors, this was not going to be a problem. Well! You find all those chargers, OK! We ended up in what was probably the world's most hectic filling station, situated on the CDG ring road. Every car in France must have passed through there at least twice in the time we waited for the one and only charge point to perform its glacial business. It became a tug of war between meeting Kinks at Arrivals and having sufficient charge to get back to Vascœuil for a well-deserved glass of wine. We did make it, but only just. An early morning foray to the town charger (returning to the house with croissants and pains-au-raisins to consume while we waited for a trickle of electricity) did save our bacon for a relatively early departure in a Southerly direction for a 6PM braai with Ann and Craig. Vascœuil to Saint-Romain (600 km) According to "A Better Routeplanner (ABRP)", this journey would take us seven-and-a-half hours including 50 minutes of charging time. We left between 10:00 and 10:30 so a 6 PM ETA for Craig's braai should have been doable. At some stage we knew this wasn't doing to happen. Shan took over the driving so that I could make intermittent updates to Chez Eriksen. Ours hosts seemed more relaxed about that than we did: "Not a problem, I still have to dig up a bit of garden," replied Craig at 5PM when it became obvious we were at least an hour off beam. "I still have to shower," said Craig a few hours later. "Ann prefers to eat later," this must have been after 8PM and we were still at least an hour away. Helter Skelter Always sympathetic refrains from Craig as I phoned while Shan drove like a bat out of hell, trusting the interactive cruise control in the dead of night to recognise the maximum possible speed for every turn on the increasingly rural roads. "I'm just making sure we maximise the recovered electricity," she tried to reassure us while I wished I'd donned brown underpants that morning. Boy was it a relief when Craig appeared waving a torch in front of us in Saint-Romain as the clock was approaching 10PM (4 hours later than ABRP's prediction[5]). Craig didn't break a sweat as he poured us fine Bordeaux and Ann remained as serene as she always seemed to be. The Eriksens were determined we were going to have our 4-hour supper, come what may. OK so part of it had been our ineptitude but 50 mins of charging, ABRP? Give us a break. Alright, I'm understandably unclear as to which evening this photo was taken (or even who took it) but the sentiment was the same. Four hours late for dinner and the welcome was undiminished, as was the quality of the local wine. Craig counts the Medoc as his local stamping ground, having completed the local Medoc Marathon for the second year in a row. Coming next
[Endnotes]:
*a person who enjoys himself or herself - Collins English Dictionary[1] The misty ephemera of a Norman village in the morning The answer was plenty of heart-in-mouth moments but what was the question? Well it was one of those that tempts fate (and therefore should have been avoided but wasn't) and was spelled out in the "Coming next" section of my final blog of our epic 5 months in South Africa. So here goes with the question in its full context: "An old bloke ventures into France for the first time post Brexit. His wife and her sister tag along. We're about to experience our first long-range EV journey before leaping into a camper van for 10 days. What could possibly go wrong?" What indeed? A huge amount of planning had gone into the getting there, viz. leaving Oxfordshire early in the morning, picking up Kerry (hereinafter referred to as Kinkels or Kinks[2]) from London Heathrow (LHR) Terminal 5 before entering the Eurotunnel, which had been booked for the middle of the day. From there we would rest in Normandy for a couple of nights and then continue our journey to our first proper destination Shan (a.k.a. Shelley-ann Harrison) and Kinks' cousin, Craig's, home in Saint-Romain in the Charente department in South Western France. Suitable slippage had been planned into each phase to ensure the plan worked like clockwork. All in all, this first section would involve a car journey of approximately 1,100 kilometres (km), taking two days plus a rest day in Normandy. Craig and his wife, Ann, had planned a Braai[3] for us to enjoy on our arrival, three days later. The first leg of Kinks' journey was to travel from Cape Town to London via Johannesburg's OR Tambo airport. Kinks' BA flight was due to take off from Johannesburg's OR Tambo airport at a respectable hour to begin to make its way to LHR by 05:30 on Tuesday, September 27. Given a fair amount of latitude for landing formalities, she would be in our car by 8 am and we'd be off to Folkestone for an electricity top up[4] at the much vaunted Tesla chargers before positioning our car in the train for the journey under la Manche. The rot started with a phone call from South Africa on the Monday evening before the Tuesday morning. Some birds had flown into the engine intake of the plane that was to fly Kinks to London and the flight had been delayed while BA rectified the situation. I started investigating the necessary changes to the Channel crossing but it wasn't long before the follow up call came. The delay would be until Tuesday evening and her luggage was unobtainable for a switch to a sensible alternative such as Lufthansa/Air France. We made a snap decision to buy Kinks a ticket from LHR to Paris (and we'd work out how to collect her from Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airport) and resume our journey while she was en route. Job done. Only it wasn't. The BA flight from OR Tambo was further delayed until Wednesday morning and BA was being typically unhelpful about helping to sort things out. All questions to the endless junior staff at OR Tambo (or seemingly in the whole of Johannesburg) were met with various versions of: "We can't make that decision ... it can only be made in England." Now, I'd recently had extraordinary difficulties getting any sense out of BA when some unrelated international flights had been postponed a few months earlier and had been advised ask for help on Twitter. This did have some limited effect so I thought I'd try the same channel again for Kinks. It wasn't long before a most personable fellow purporting to be Peter from BA had tweeted back. He assured us he could expedite Kinks getting to Paris. We felt reassured. We might even be able to fetch Kinks from CDG earlyish the next day. Only, Peter started to insist that we cancel Kinks' existing Joburg to LHR flight first and he'd then be able to rebook appropriately. At this time we were talking to him from sous la Manche, i.e. under the sea! We asked if he could prompt the BA staff at OR Tambo first and he prevaricated, intimating that he couldn't because he was based in BA's Nairobi office. This was not, in itself, outlandish given the service industry being scattered around the globe these days.. Shan smelled a rat and asked a telling question about the flight he claimed he could get Kinks on to. Caught off guard he said he could get her on BA064 if we first cancelled her current ticket. BA064 flies from Nairobi to LHR. We immediately cut the call. He did try to call me sous la Manche (we were amazed that calls worked the whole way through the tunnel) at which point we were congratulating ourselves for avoiding an expensive scam. We eventually managed to speak to Kinks, now fully aware that she was going to miss her Wednesday flight to CDG. She succeeded, at some cost, in postponing it and we eventually fetched her from CDG after a late evening flight from LHR. Got home at midnight and had a bit of a knees-up with the odd glass of wine or two. The third member of our party hadn't slept much for 72 hours by the time we crawled into bed at the lovely house we were renting in Vascoeuil. I tell you what, though, one has to be brave to drive into CDG. It's a self-contained metropolis in its own right. The access roads are labyrinthine. Château d'En Croûton Above, l to r: we named the half-timbered house on the left Château d'En Croûton; a room in the tiny château. This lovely cottage in Vascœuil in the Eure department in Normandy captured our imagination as a chapter of the ongoing saga of Oncrust. This saga is well-known to the latter day extant Deale family starting with Shan's Mum Judy and continuing into my wife's siblings and, now, her offspring. Essentially, being an almost only child 8, 7 and 6 years younger than her older siblings, the young Shelley-ann's entertainment incorporated an imaginary friend, Oncrust. She was of a similar age to our Shan and the friendship became quite intense when my wife was a little girl too young to go to school with her older sister and brothers. The childish sophistication of the conversations between Shan and Oncrust developed to the point where they began to drive Judy scatty and she eventually managed to get her youngest daughter accepted at pre-school at the age of four. Before that happened Shan had identified a disreputable hut on a hillside near the Deale home and insisted every time that the family passed this dwelling in their car that this was Oncrust's house. This became so ingrained in her siblings that to this day they all immediately understand who Oncrust is when she comes up in conversation. Our own daughter, Kate, became captivated by the story to the extent that she, too, is more than familiar with Oncrust's history and her environs in Cowie's Hill in South Africa. Wind forward more than 40 years and Kate, Shan and I were visiting my sister, Cath, for Christmas in the part of Normandy where she now lives. Kate would have been in her late teens and studying French at school when we drove past a tiny and somewhat disreputable half-timbered outbuilding in one of the villages. "Look, there's Encroûton's house," our daughter exclaimed. And so it was when Shan and I first clapped eyes on our charming house we were renting for two nights[5], it immediately became Château d'En Croûton and photographs quickly ended up on the family WhatsApp group and it was immediately recognised by all as Oncrust's more affluent ancestors' stately home. Above, l to r: Shan captured this whimsical picture of sunrise in the mist in Vascoeuil; Kinks still able to manage a bright-eyed smile after 72 hours of travelling ... perhaps some French wine helped ... I love this picture BTW. Kinks had barely arrived when we had to leave Vascoeuil. It would have been splendid to have properly walked around the town and its grand château and chilled out for a while. But there were cousins to see and Bordeaux wines to sample with a French braai. Craig was expecting us at around 6 pm but that stretched out to 7, 8, 9 and almost 10[6]. What wonderful hosts we had ... supper was enjoyed from around 10 pm until maybe 2 am the next day. I think Kinks finally waned but the rest of us soldiered on. Above: Kinks is the first up for breakfast-al-fresco after a challenging journey ... there is no curbing her enthusiasm (Craig had been out for the fresh bakery, it must be said).
Coming next
[Endnotes]:
The last fortnight on our 5-month sojourn and we suddenly felt as if we were running out of time. Technically we were still illegal aliens with a bit more aggro to come. This blog is predominantly a happy picture story with captions, so I might as well get the aggro out of the way at the start. SA Home Affairs VFS Global In summary, we first found out that our Irish passports were only good for a three month stay after we'd booked our flights for a five-month stay. Initially this seemed a fairly trivial obstacle. Ha ha ha. There was allegedly a new online app that would expedite everything. After initial attempts to follow this route it proved purely ephemeral. Some email communication between Oxfordshire and Cape Town later, I resorted to calling the Embassy in London. The operative there was rude and unhelpful. And so it went. The received wisdom was that we should leave for SA as planned at the beginning of October 2021 and apply for an extension once we got to the other end. A month before our allowed 90-days was up, we were told. No worries, we were staying fairly close to Caledon Home Affairs, so not a major hassle. There is no point repeating chapter and verse[1] what happened after that except that the process had moved to Long Street in Cape Town and in mid-February 2022 we were R15,000[2] poorer and remained sans visas. What could they do when the time came to fly home on February 28 and we remained technically aliens. You may well ask! We had heard stories, at least one of them verifiable, of travellers stuck in South Africa for an indeterminate period. It took our friend something like three weeks to sort things out before returning home. Come mid-February we enquired (yet again) about progress and were told to be at VFS in Cape Town at 2PM on Friday, February 18. Given that we could be there all afternoon we booked accommodation on the Cape Peninsula for that night. Confirmation of the VFS booking would be emailed to us that we would need to print off and present upon our arrival at Home Affairs. "Did you think your appointment was on Friday the 18th?" Kerry blurted when Shan answered our phone. We'd emailed her to ask if her husband, Tim, would mind printing the confirmation. We had no printer at our current place of abode. "Yes," Shan replied, "we've booked and paid for accommodation for that night!" "Well Tim's just noticed that the appointment has been confirmed for Monday the 21st." I shan't repeat my normally polite wife's stream of invective. She was very cross when she managed to get hold of the agent on the phone. Apart from anything else, it wasn't even clear whether we'd been granted the visa or not and with just 7 days to go ... To be fair, they did pull the stops out and came back with an answer: "Be there when VFS opens on Friday morning and they'll see you then ... ." They did see us and after a fair old nail biting wait we went through another interview and some signings and finally our visas were stuck into our passports. Idly flicking through my passport to look at the paperwork this morning I noticed that the visa had been granted four weeks previously. They could at least have put us out of our misery. Listen here: no more depressing stuff [Ed] A tale of two quite different eateries These were two fab places to eat that we'd somehow managed to miss out on until our return to the UK was looming. First there was De Vette Mossel, a kind of weekend pop-up with panoramic views while having, to quote my wife, "Great fun eating 7 courses with our feet and chairs teetering on the sand." The plan was to entertain our generous benefactors as a final thank you and maybe distribute a few bottles we'd rashly overbought in our rediscovered love for Western Province wine. So here's to Kerry, Emma, Sheila, Tim and Tony. Above: (top) The view of the Klein River lagoon so cunningly framed by the proprietors that, no matter where you stand, it is always right in front of you; (row 2, l-r) Shan and Kerry, a.k.a. Kinkles, having a laugh; joined by Emma on the pier; all the okes[3], presumably taken by my vrou[4] seeing as she's not in the picture; (Row 3 l-r) Tony; Tim; Sheila; me having a laugh with Emma; (Bottom) Sea Gals ... see what they did there. OK this is starting to sound a bit like a corny Cornish postcard (which is a delightful juxtaposition with the lekker[5] food and continuity announcer/maitre'd). On the opposite end of the spectrum was Le Chalet, an old-fashioned fine-dining restaurant to which Emma had been dying to take us. It was fabulous. Leo the chef/proprietor has clearly downsized from a much more substantial Swiss establishment to Fisherhaven, where he continues to serve up one delight after another in this entirely family run restaurant. If one sits outside there are views of the Bot River lagoon where an eclectic list of fine wines will round off ones visit (this is all beginning to sound like a blurb but these are all my own words). Le Chalet seriously delivers. Why did we only discover it within days of heading back to the UK? Above l-r: An unassuming, but very typically Swiss, chalet; the dining areas follow suit; each course is prepared and delivered with style. Après visa We were getting a tad antsy while going through an entire morning of visa minutiae, partly because they still hadn't confirmed that we had actually been granted the visa but mostly because we had a date with Angela Lloyd[6] before some prearranged family engagements. Angela had not yet had the privilege of a particular cheese and of a winemakers produce we'd been lucky enough to get hold of up the Hemel-en-Aarde valley. Her car was on sick leave and we had promised to get some of these examples of deliciousness and drop them off in Kenilworth. Intuiting that we would refuse any payment for a couple of bottles of Die Kat se Snor and a chunk of cheese, she lay in wait with a bottle of 2018 Skerpioen as a thank-you to us. For those of you in the know, I don't need to describe what a fine present this was. For the others, suffice to say that "thoughtful" and "generous" don't come close to our appreciation of the gift of one of the Sadie Family's signature wines. The question now is when, and with whom, do we drink it? Our final destination that evening was the Grosvenor Guest House in Simon's Town, which was most comfortable in its own right but also remarkable for its sweeping views across False Bay. Before settling in for the night, we set about exploring the town itself. Arthur Deale Shan had never stopped there before and considerable nostalgia ensued wandering around the streets of the town where her Dad, Arthur Deale, had spent his time in the naval base during WWII. Much of the architecture of Simon's Town and many of the buildings date from long before that time. Above: (top row) Naval ships are juxtaposed with civilian vessels these days but the majestic mountains encroaching on False Bay and those enshrouded by cloud beyond the Cape Flats are constants from Arthur's time in Simon's Town; (middle row l-r) the beautiful boy on the right is Arthur; one would like to imagine that he, a Durban boy, might have enjoyed a curry in this establishment [although it is sadly unlikely that the Natal and Cape cultures had merged to that extent in the 1940s]; a little more likely might have been that Arthur could have stood outside this fine convenience when out on a passeggiata with a date during shore leave; back at the Grosvenor Guest House sipping wine on the patio and the moon made a dramatic appearance with two babies; (bottom row) across False Bay at night. And here's an aside to the Deale family who grew up with Maxi, the Great Dane. In Simon's Town, at the main viewing spot, there is a statue to Just Nuisance a raffish but much loved Great Dane[8] who inhabited the town and its surrounding areas during WWII, eventually becoming enlisted in the navy. One does wonder if Arthur chose Maxi as Judy's 30th birthday gift partially in memory of nights spent under Nuisance's protection. The other side of Shan's family After WWII, and some time before 1951, Eric Arthur Percy Deale met Judith Elaine Eriksen. This was a lucky coincidence for me because that was how my dear wife came into being in 1960. Before that my outlaws, Patrick, Martin and Kerry came into this world. Judy (Judith) still lives in Hermanus and was the main focus of our 144 days outlined in this blog. Her niece Vickie Tyrrell and nephews, Leif Eriksen and Charles Phillips live in Cape Town and we were headed to Miller's Point, South of Simonstown, to join them for a pukka braai. The venue was a splendid wooden shack, owned by Leif's wife, Angie's family since time immemorial (we believe built by her grandfather in 1929). We'd heard about it for years and now we were going to visit it. Before launching into the pics, I must apologise to Angie and Shan for the camera distortion my iPhone brought to the wide angle extremities. They really aren't that wide. Above: (top) the view from Angie's shack at Miller's Point; (below l-r) Angie, Leif, Joe Tyrrell, Vickie, Charles and Shan; don't ask [any of the participants may elaborate in the comments to this blog if they have a coherent explanation - as with all these blogs, they are living things ... Charles knows]. Scrabbling Before we left we simply had to have lunch at the Tesselaarsdal Post Office (which we shared with a very polite family and an extraordinarily well-behaved stag party [maybe there was more to follow later]). We also had to pay our respects to Carolyn Martin at Creation Wines[7] and have a cocktail on the beach at Dutchies (miraculously we'd not got around to this for 5 months!). Above: hopefully these pics [predominantly of the Tesselaarsdal PO and its clientele and fare] speak for themselves; Delicious cocktails at Dutchie's on the beach in Hermanus round off our holiday. It was fitting that we spent the last evening of our sojourn in the Western Cape drinking wine with Emma. Probably not quite so sensible that we started at 5PM and stopped at midnight. What a roller coaster we'd had. Above: The overall framework of this series of blogs, now ending, was a 5-month expedition for us to spend time with Shan's 92-year-old Mum, Judy, after we'd all been drained by Covid. More than half a century had elapsed between the two photos above and Shan and I got our own daughter, Kate, in the bargain. Postscript ... a doff of my hat to Creation Wines For 5 months from October 2021 to February 2022 I'd dithered over a trip to Creation. There was a website but it wasn't clear to me what was on offer or how to go about making reservations et al and time swept by. This came out in a chance remark to a newfound wine Twitter friend, Lisa Harlow. I think she was a bit irritated with me but didn't show it. Suffice to say (a brusque "leave it to me" to be exact) Lisa contacted Carolyn Martin, Creation's co-owner, who contacted me. At this stage we had no time left for a proper visit but Carolyn agreed to meet me at the winery for a chat on our last Saturday morning. We were en route to Tesselaarsdal. When I saw what I'd been missing I knew I'd deprived myself and, more importantly, Shan, of a unique experience. We vowed to go back there when we were next in Hermanus. Actually, the opportunity came up for one of us to visit Creation again sooner than expected. Shan's Mum, Judy, had reached a crossroad and she really needed to be moved to a care home. If Shan didn't pop back to Hermanus, Kerry and her family were going to be left with an intolerable burden. The two sisters worked like Trojans and I scratched my head for a way to release some of the tension. It didn't take long to to come up with the obvious answer. I contacted Carolyn and set the Creation ball rolling. Happily Tim, Kerry's husband, was complicit and offered to fetch the two tired and emotional sisters after a 7-pairing fine-dining experience. The deal was sealed and I reckoned I earned a few brownie points to mitigate my unrequited FOMO. Above: les girls raved and a great many OMGs punctuated that evening's WhatsApp intercontinental dialogue. There was special mention of the wonderful attention they'd had from the staff and the extraordinary taste sensations they'd experienced. They were so carried away they even agreed to drink some red wine and conceded that it had been the perfect match for courses it had accompanied (including the chocolate pud in the last frame above).
Coming next An old bloke ventures into France for the first time post Brexit. His wife and her sister tag along. We're about to experience our first long-range EV journey before leaping into a camper van for 10 days. What could possibly go wrong? [Endnotes]:
The tableau above has become a bit of an icon on the N2 highway before traversing Sir Lowry's Pass on the descent into Cape Town. It invites travellers to browse a stupendous collection of bric-a-brac and perhaps consume a welcome breakfast before embarking on the final 100km of the journey. The 5 days of missed highlights proved to be pretty intense. A pause at the end of Day 2 seemed a good idea so that we could include a few surprises, starting with breakfast in a prison. Actually you already went off piste at Grunters Twice! ... get on with it, (Ed.) Turn off at Riversdale Who'd have thought of taking in the Riversdale prison on a road trip? Actually, who'd have thought of stopping at Riversdale! It turned out there was another good reason to swerve off the N2 highway at this unassuming town but, first, how about a volle tronk ontbyt (see below) with all the trimmings, to set us up for the day ahead. Above: (clockwise from top left) while choosing your breakfast, you can read how the dastardly Gilbert Hay of Heidelberg came to meet his maker in Riversdale; following that you can admire the rope that brought about his dénouement; then you can consume the hearty brekker, fit for a convict[1]; a fair degree of convo-chic has been added to what is now a labyrinth of small shops selling art and used furniture (some of it very good value for a wandering British tourist). Now, back to that other reason (incorporating a bit of preamble). The English have a strange tradition of "bagging Wainwrights", which involves going through a book (or many books) identifying Wainwrights (hills/mountains in the Lake District catalogued by one Alfred Wainwright), walking up them and then ticking them off on a sort-of bucket list. You can imagine the conversation halfway up Scafell Pike in the drizzle, two Wainwright-baggers on a mission cross paths: "Hello, lovely day 'innit? This is #113 for me," chest slightly puffed out. "Oh, this is #142 for me. Have you done Blencathra?" Interlocutor number one looks crestfallen, aware of being trumped by the taller, more difficult peak. And so it was with Shan and me that sunny morning in February. I doubt the Wainwright-baggers would've accorded us the credibility we felt we deserved but we'd motored over a few South African passes in our time, many of them gravel in a dubious state of repair.. names like Sani, Naude's Nek, Quacha's Neck, Ramatselitso's Gate, Price Alfred's, Bainskloof, and Swartberg (the last three of these the sadistic machinations of Thomas Bain - and the last mentioned the one Shan made me vow to never take her over again). Now we were contemplating a new road, swooping over the Overberg into the Klein (Little) Karoo. If you love craggy scenery with gentler curves, ascents and descents, Garcia's Pass will get you started and begging for more. The gravel road to Barrydale just behind the mountains is a perfect introduction to the Little Karoo if you wish to relieve the monotony of the N2 highway, mostly notable for taking the shortest distance between Mossel Bay and Cape Town. Montagu (Montagee) It was an easy drive to Montagu (allegedly pronounced Montagee by those in the know although we couldn't bring ourselves to do this), punctuated by brunch in one of the many cafés in Barrydale. Above (clockwise from top left): breakfast on the terrace at the scenic Kogman & Keisie Guest Farm[2]; the pocket Leidam Bird Hide and sanctuary in central Montagu, with egrets and stuff, which delighted my wife; two samples of the delightfully OTT baroque/contemporary/Art Deco BluVines winery, dining and coffee establishment ... the pic on the right a kind of temple to wine and the one on the left for sun-worshippers who are serious about their religion. When he heard we were spending the night in Montagu, my friend, Daryl (Balfour) insisted: "If you go nowhere else in the town you must go to BluVines." Sadly they weren't open at the time for evening meals but we managed to drop by when leaving town the next day and vowed to return if we ever visited the area again. Greyton I had heard about Greyton but Shan wasn't sure. It is a small town in the Western Cape with a bit of a rep for being a lovely place to visit. I probably wouldn't have been that bothered had it not been for the lure of wine. Somehow a few winemakers had recognised the potential of the area around there. In recent years one in particular had risen to the fore through a combination of her skills and her fortitude in overcoming a devastating fire. For all our Roaminations around the length and breadth of South Africa during the five months starting at the beginning of October 2021 and despite Greyton being a relative stone's throw from our base in Hermanus, we had never seemed to get there. Weekend trips had been mooted from the very start of our stay but never quite materialised for some reason or the other: "There's an art festival on this weekend and accommodation will be impossible in the town;" "Why would I want to go to Greyton with all the other superior attractions;" "It is a drop with a mountain - every time we've been there we've never seen the mountain because of the cloud;" And so it went. And now we had less than three weeks left. And I wanted to "bag" a winery, Lismore, with its window on the world in central Greyton. With a following wind I might catch a glimpse or even a word with its inspirational winemaker, one of South Africa's current finest, Samantha O'Keefe. In so doing I had set myself up for another in a series of "Broomfield Moments[3]". After more than 4 months during which I had, unbeknownst to Ms O'Keefe, tried to contrive an opportunity to congratulate her personally on her peerless Viognier I had failed miserably. Not only was she out of town (I believe she may have been in London being feted by the likes of Roger Jones and Neleen Strauss, restaurateurs of note and formidable sommeliers to boot) but the Lismore shop was shut for the time we were there. As for the dreaded cloud cover, there wasn't a daytime Greyton moment when we didn't see the mountain. So for anyone asking hopefully of our visit to Greyton: "Did you see the mountain?" My answer was going to have to be: "Yes but we didn't see Samantha O'Keefe." Above: (top row) The Lismore shop is bookended by scenes from our rather pleasant digs at Fiore Garden Centre, Restaurant and Guest Accommodation - on the left the mountain can be clearly seen, on the right the makings of an evening joyfully spent; (bottom row) one of several corners of the town that has been attractively restored. But someone did tell us we should visit Genadendal ... perhaps it was Emma? Genadendal (née Baviaanskloof) It does seem a little bizarre that Genadendal is evidently subservient as an attraction to Greyton. There is so much to say about the former that I'm really not going to attempt a full description. It is a place that stands proudly on its own and deserves a day spent there, walking around absorbing the magic and taking in one of the most comprehensive and wide-ranging but eclectic museums we've ever visited. Essentially Genadendal was the first location in Southern Africa where European religious zealots attempted to proselytise the local population and the intervening almost 300 years has had its ups and downs. The Genadendal Mission Museum tackles this pretty much head on and is consequently a fascinating interlude for those interested in the vagaries of South African history since the Moravians arrived to set up the mission in 1737. It has veered from a refuge for freed slaves in the early 1800s to an eminent teacher training facility set up in 1838 and closed in 1929. Nelson Mandela visited in 1995 and it is rumoured that his naming of his Cape Town presidential residence was associated with that trip. Visit the museum to absorb the fascinating details in more depth. Today Genadendal is a town of two parts, the somewhat regal historical village and a sprawling modern township. It is ironical that it has become subservient to Greyton, falling under the latter's tourism ambit. Above: This is a sampler of what is to be found in the historic village. There is no substitute for the museum and for generally moseying around. The final frame shows the mountain sans cloud - at its base there are nature walks between Grenadendal and Greyton. A few quirks on the last leg The subject of Shelley-ann's opening photograph to this blog draws travellers in to an extraordinary cave of bric-a-bac with useful ideas for that gift you just forgot to buy for your Capetonian hosts before setting off on your visit - options can be mulled over via enjoying a breakfast, brunch or lunch. We were also drawn to the fine pub that now inhabits one of the old sheds at Bot River station. The Shuntin' Shed serves tasty pizzas and other victuals to go with the beer and wine. Bot River is becoming increasingly admired for its wine and I would salute the entrepreneur who established train-based booze cruises Above: I think these pics are self-explanatory. Coming next
Wrapping up our 144 days (perhaps as illegal aliens for the last 54). [Endnotes]:
Individual, longer road trips had always pushed our time envelopes, ending up with a rush to get back to Hermanus. A closer-to-home mini-trip was in order. Of course, "closer-to-home" is a relative concept when confronting the vast spaces of the Western Cape. Visiting Arniston at last We must have been the last of the intrepid travellers we knew to miss out on Arniston. In fact, calling the place Arniston is a bit misleading. The most interesting bits are in adjoining Kassiesbaai and at the end of a short(ish) trek South to Waenhuiskrans. Let's start with Waenhuiskrans and its grot (Afrikaans for cave seems most appropriate). Timing is all because it's not good to be inside the grot(to) when the tide comes in. That much is fairly obvious from the pictures but there is also the access to the cave which involves traversing large slippery boulders for a hundred metres or so before slithering through a low entrance to reach the final destination. And that's after you've descended a precipitous path of uneven rocks before you even reach the water. Not great when one's balance is compromised by Long Covid. Shan got there first and took the following fab photos. She also established that, despite the fact you'd never get a wagon and attendant oxen down there, the cave was originally named Waenhuis (Wagon House) on the hypothetical assumption that if you could, they would fit. Above: (top) A splendid shot from the back of the cave; (bottom left) Shan slithered forward for more of a view from the grotto's mouth; (bottom right) taken from outside the grot four intrepid surf anglers dice with the waves that would grab unwary tourists at a slightly higher tide. Happily, we emerged relatively unscathed. A few cuts and bruises for me but not a scratch for my wife, the gazelle. We repaired to Kassiesbaai for lunch. To Willeen's Art, Craft and Restaurant to be exact. This enabled us to do several things:
We strolled back to the 'Posh" bit to retrieve our car going a little bit past it to check out the small enclave of kerk and the odd restored cottage that were separated from the riff-raff by the Spa and Behemoth now occupying the central ground. Above: (top row) Langklip beach at the Kassiesbaai end was by far the most lively and provided the backdrop for an enjoyable lunch; (2nd row) characterful buildings in the old fishing village en route to Willeen's and the beach; (3rd row) Shan at Willeen's and a meal of succulent fish; (bottom row) improvised sculpture and an informal housing unit pumping out a dash of reggae. We retired to the BlueSky Arniston Guest House for the evening (although I did escape for a quick sortie to take some photos in the lengthening shadows, below). Despitebeing set a fair way back from the sea front, this was one of the best accommodations we stayed in during our 144 day odyssey. Above: (top row) a kerk[1] and historic farmhouse form a small collection of historic buildings on the "posh" side of Arniston/Kassiesbaai; (2nd row) some of the fishermen's cottages facing across the "Newtown" have been smartened up but most still retain a more informal and sociable air; (3rd row) heading to the beach to catch the last rays and perhaps a swim; (bottom) a kind of passeggiata in which car drivers are also participants, crawling along the few streets - don't expect to maintain even the 30 km/h speed limit at this time of the evening.. The next section of our journey involved skirting around the particularly wild stretch of coast to the North-East of Kassiesbaai, which includes the De Hoop nature reserve. Our primary point of interest was to be the Sijnn winery, which we had been told was doing some splendid things that were specific to the local terroir. As was often the case on our South African road trips, there were other unexpected diversions, too. Above: map of the 650 km, 5-day inner circle of missed highlights, note to self - spend a few hours in Napier if following this route again, maybe time it for lunch. Sijnn at last "If you get a chance and you're passing Malgas, you must try and get to Sijnn wines," my friend, Daryl (Bikey) Balfour, pronounced. 'Er, Bikey, you don't just "pass" Malgas! Nonetheless, my heartfelt thanks because we did just pass Malgas but only because the primary destination was the Sijnn vineyard (at your recommendation, of course). There were a few of bonuses along the way thrown into the bargain, too. A couple of these presented themselves before we even got to Sijnn when we were confused by the signs and had to ask for directions ... Above: (top left) listen guys, this occurred on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere between Ouplaas and Malgas and we weren't quite sure we were on the right track - there was no-one else to ask; (top right) and yes there was a Dop Shop[2], together with an estate agent, a trading post and Grunters Restaurant and Pub (complete with disco), in the middle of vast scrubland with a few gravel roads heading in various directions; (bottom left) and yes there were two pristine Dutch cyclists in Grunters having breakfast, having cycled that morning across semi-desert from Swellendam, 45 km away; (bottom right) we resolved to return to Grunters after visiting Sijnn - we were definitely up for a burger and chips. So now we really are at Sijnn It would seem that I have been serendipitously dilatory catching up with my blogging endeavours in the week during which Tim Atkin MW[3] delivered his much awaited 2022 SA report[4]. Not only does it reveal that he has named Charla Bosman (née Haasbroek) his 2022 Young Winemaker of the Year but it also includes a comprehensive article on Terroir in his introductory section "South Africa at a glance - The 10 things you need to know." This is important to this yarn because on that day in February I learned more from Charla about terroir than at any time in my previous half century of being a wine-lover. Described by Jancis Robinson MW as "the total natural environment of any viticultural site"[5] it all became crystal clear sitting beside Charla on the Sijnn verandah while she gestured at the spectacular scenery in front of us. It was a glorious day with the Breede River valley bisecting the arid scrub on its way to the sea. Shan and I were tasting the 2017 Sijnn White under the tutelage of its eloquent winemaker.. After a brief chat about the coincidence of two great young winemakers, Francois and Charla, having the same family name, and establishing that they were firm friends but in no way related, we turned to more serious matters. This vintage of Sijnn was the White's 10th vintage. Charla noted that they were just beginning to understand their terroir which had brought about the most exceptional vintage yet at Malgas. The latest 2021 vintage is described by Tim and others as the best yet so I'd better be sniffing out UK importers before Sijnn fans have snaffled the lot. Shan wandered off to admire the landscape while Charla poured some of the red vintages for me. The latest of these, the 2019 was awarded 96/100 points by Tim in his 2022 report. I think the most fascinating aspect of this little bit of heaven on the edge of Malgas was that a decade or so earlier the terroir was being treated with extreme scepticism by fellow winemakers. Seemingly hot, dry and arid compared with other emerging regions such as Hemel-en-Aarde. But, enabled by owner David Trafford, Charla had a multi-faceted plan to harness the cooling sea breezes Malgas shares with Hemel-en-Aarde including:
I could go on (and on and on) so apologies to readers if I've been dwelling a bit about the winemaking details that were a revelation to me ... we'll be returning to Grunters soon for some soul food. But briefly back to the fact that two of South Africa's foremost emerging winemakers started out in life with Haasbroek as their last name, I think it was Charla who assured me that it wasn't as unusual a name as I'd imagined it to be. Apparently, not even in the wine industry. Thank you again Bikey for the suggestion, it was totally worth it. Above: (top left) we caught the comfy wine and food tasting verandah at a quiet time of the year and were privileged to enjoy undivided attention; (top right) the Breede River winds its way to its mouth with what appears to be an extension of the Overberg in the background; (bottom left) Charla Bosman née Haasbroek and David Trafford; (bottom right) not too easy to find in the UK, Charla pointed me towards a Scottish distributor who was most efficient but didn't have much stock - will Tim's report make finding Sijnn wines outside South Africa easier or more difficult? Grunters Restaurant and Bar at the Breede River Trading Post Returning to the Breede River Trading Post and while consuming our fat boy (and girl) special burgers we contemplated this phenomenal establishment with not a dwelling in sight or within several kilometres. It must seat close to a 100 revellers at peak capacity. Unless they are all Dutch cyclists and/or horse riders, you can forget pistols at dawn. SUVs at closing time a definite possibility, though. Above: (top row l-r) the trading post that is a precipitous few kilometres from anywhere on the Breede River; clearly they must entertain the occasional fisherman, given the name of the bar and restaurant[6]; there is an ample sound system (which was currently blaring out Bruce Springsteen) and seating for what must be 100 diners/revellers; (bottom row l-r) Shan can't keep the grin from her face as she contemplates a fatty-burger a la Brucie; examples of some serious lavatorial kitsch - where does one actually find such things. Ferry 'cross the Breede It had been with a little trepidation that we committed to this route. As with quite a few remote rural locations in South Africa it can be quite tricky to obtain current information as to the passibility of roads. Had it not been for the drawcard of Sijnn we probably would have taken an alternate route via Swellendam. When contemplating our travel plans we could only find info via the net. The following was a fairly typical entry from two years before[7]: "It was with great sadness that we said farewell to the historic pontoon/ferry over the Breede River at Malgas. Since the first half of the 19th century it has transported goods, animal and vehicles over the River. However, it will soon be replaced by a yellow metal monster with no character at all. I salute the amazing men who harness themselves to the cable and walk the length of the pontoon to pull it 120 metres to the other side of the river." I suppose it was a little sad but this was outweighed by the relief at finding the new crossing in place and working like clockwork. It's free, too, which is always a surprise to the British motorist. The passage was as smooth as anything; just a tad of welly/wheelspin getting off and up the ramp on the other side marred our stately progress. Above: (top row) the pont approaches from the far side; our car embarking; (bottom row) we had to travel via the mouth of the Breede to pick up an easier road up to Riversdale; finally ensconced at our accommodation for the night with a glass of wine.
Tomorrow we would be breakfasting in prison before crossing the mountains in the background of the last picture above. Coming next The last 3 days of our short road trip, taking in Garcia's Pass, Montagu, Greyton and Genadendal. [Endnotes]:
I guess it shouldn't be surprising that Hermanus in the Western Cape has at least two proper wine merchants. It is, after all, at the foot of the Hemel-en-Aarde valley, new darling of the South African wine cognoscenti. Of course, Hermanus having been the focus of Walker Bay for as long as I can remember (and that is becoming a very long time), there are many other wine outlets, too. They range from street corner minimarkets, offering a handful of cheap and cheerful bottles, to large chain store outlets with vast premises and surprisingly little choice. During numerous previous trips to Hermanus I have treated The Wine Village, which sits a little out of town at the entrance to the Hemel-en-Aarde valley, as a temple to much of what is Great and Good in South African wine. A generous space housing so much, enthused over by a knowledgeable staff. In fact I'd have had no reason to go anywhere else had it not been for a message from my old pal Daryl[1]. "Banj, go and see Gary at Wine & Co in the centre of town." Why would I do that? Nirvana was already at The Wine Village? But, as we were staying within a stone's throw (well almost, certainly easy walking distance) of the centre of Hermanus, it wasn't long before I stuck my head in the door of Wine & Co to see what Gary had to offer. There was an instant, almost spiritual, magnetic draw. This was a rare quality that I'd experienced only a few times before. Fairly recently at the Wine Kollective in Riebeek Kasteel[2] and, in the beginning, Wherever Solange Raffray Was at the Moment. I never went back to The Wine Village. Sorry guys, you were great. The shop's exterior blends in with its attractive surrounds and the interior is intimate. Gary and Siemon are attentive but not intrusive. It seems as if, despite its pocket size, everything is in there. Mostly Saffa wine but also some international gems (and a choice bottle or two of pukka Whisky). Wine & Co's Wine Shop stands in one of the charming early 20th century streets behind the main thoroughfare through Hermanus's centre The shop has many nooks and crannies and, believe me, there are treasures to be discovered poking their insidious noses from those shelves. They go for diversity rather than vast quantities of each individual wine. Except, maybe, for the central bins that contain the "quaffers". There are Persian rugs on the floor that both filter out the harsher sounds and possibly save the odd dropped bottle from a terminal catastrophe. Oh no, he's orff at a tangent again ... But first, before progressing further I'm going to digress as I'm often wont to do: We were recently running low on everyday Chardonnay at home in the UK and I had some credit on an account I have maintained at a large mail-order retailer in Norfolk. They generally supply me with splendid products from Richard Kershaw, Kruger Family and other similar wines. I tried to order 5 or 6 of my favourites and they were out of stock. Might as well try something less familiar, I think. Ticked the box for 6 bottles of some Californian stuff at £13 (R260) a bottle. It duly arrived and was clearly off. I attempted to report this via an extremely clunky process on the retailer's website. Eventually ended up phoning the company to report that something was wrong with the wine. "Can you try another of the 6 bottles?" the operative suggested. I wasn't keen but she seemed be adamant. I've been drinking wine for more than 50 years and I know when a bottle's contents are vrot[3]. Shan agreed with me and she drinks Chardonnay most days of her life. We opened another bottle. If anything it was even more vrot. I tried to report back but I could not find a way to do it other than via a completely useless bot that had been preprogrammed with a restricted set of options. So I ranked the wine on the site. The winemaker replied promptly and suggested I contact the "Customer Happiness Team" for a refund. Also, this retailer has a set of super-customers that are like school prefects who seem to parse the customer feedback loop. Don't know what their role is other than to tell you to contact the Customer Happiness Team. The winemaker had already told me this on the same thread. Two of them responded in this fashion. It is not immediately obvious from the site how to contact the Customer "Happiness" Team and somehow I ended up back in the same loop. There was a phone number through all this but it was never available. Eventually found a side street in the bot that allowed me to request a call back within a day or so. In fairness the call back was fairly prompt and my account was credited in full. But what a process and no offer to refund the actual money. OK, so shit happens and we have to suck it up in the name of convenience. Only problem is that these companies that emulate the likes of Amazon have seen off huge tranches of "corner" shops throughout the UK. Our town used have a wine merchant, as did the next town 5 miles away. How are Gary and Wine & Co different? Let's start with the social intercourse. Visiting the shop is an intrinsically enjoyable experience. If it's just a bottle or two of Shan's everyday Chardonnay you need, foraging becomes a pleasant stroll into a picturesque part of the town and a furtle around in the Wine & Co bins in the middle of the shop (see above). There is almost always one for Chardonnay. Pick up the bottles you want, exchange a few words with Siemon or Gary, pay at the counter and leave the shop with a smile on your face. Of course your smile is splitting your face because the benchmark quaffing Chardonnay is priced at R70-ish (That's less than £3.50[4]). So, in real terms[5] for comparison's sake, your basic benchmark wine, handed over with a smile, is costing a fraction of its Norfolk equivalent which comes at best with a clinical transaction and at worst with more than a week of aggravation. At the other end of the scale, Wine & Co gets most of the exclusive "allocation" stuff, including from the likes of the Sadie Family, Alheit, Mullineux, Savage, Leeu Passant, Porseleinberg and many more. For those not in the know, these are limited-quantity high-end wines that riff-raff, like you and me, have no access to (except that we do, provided we know a Gary). But that's only the half of it and it's not long before the real fun starts ... Above, clockwise from top left: I'd asked my nephew, Michael Tindall, and his wife and daughter, Janine and Mia, to pop down to Wine & Co to take some photos for me (I'd been too preoccupied every time I went there myself to think of grabbing some pics). Michael's thank-you was to have been the bottle of Anysbos DISDIT he is holding in his paw. Unfortunately, I evidently hadn't explained to Gary that that bottle should go home with Mike[6]; In the mean time, to demonstrate the versatility of the Persian rugs, Mia reclines while checking out the options for her parents' evening quaff (her mother is sadly not in the picture, Mike having delegated the lichtaffen responsibilities); deprived of their DISDIT, the Tindall family bought their own bottle of home brew ... watch out for sharks, crocodiles and bilharzia; Gary and Siemon depriving Mike of his hard earned gains with a smile. Gary pretty much remembers one's name from the first step one makes into the shop. He also remembers the names of anyone who has accompanied you, so Mark, Shan and Kerry (Shan's sister and Michael's mother), who lives in Hermanus, are all addressed as such. Some other people can do that but Gary remembers one's preferences, too. So, instead of a dodgy website (housed in Norwich) that keeps offering me wine I've explicitly said I don't like, Gary has the knowledge. Stored. In. His. Head. And it's not long before regular customers get a WhatsApp message going something like this: "Just opened a bottle of ... that you might like. Pop into the shop if you'd like to give it a try." I also mentioned that Wine & Co doesn't carry vast quantities of each individual wine. That's because (and I'm surmising here):
I could go on and on but I'll leave it with this thought. Wine & Co is more than a shop. It is a gathering place for people who love wine. If you accept an invitation to "Pop into the shop" you'll probably end up in a spirited conversation with like-minded individuals who've also received the summons. What better way to spend half an hour at the end of the day. If you truly love wine you just want to share that love. If a wine is pretty special, I personally want to sip it in the company of similarly appreciative winos. Just before I left, I actually took my own bottle of 2017 Syrah down to one of these soirees. I'd bought it direct from wine sage Francois Haasbroek[7] at Blackwater Wine and wanted to share it with people who understood and would appreciate it. Gary and Siemon fitted the bill perfectly. If you simply need to stop by to pick up a consignment that is too extensive to carry home in a bag, the penguins will keep an eye on your vehicle while you wait.
Coming next Wrapping up our 144 days (perhaps as illegal aliens for the last 54). [Endnotes]:
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AuthorMark Harrison - making travelling an adventure Archives
March 2024
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