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Stellenbosch

Our accommodation place in Stellenbosch was called the Stumble Inn, actually a backpackers, but with a small back garden we could pitch our tents in.

The town is a University town and with all the students has a terrific pub scene and night life. We ate at De Akker, the third oldest pub in South Africa - the food was nothing to write home about but a great place to sit and down a beer or two.

The town is full of beautiful old Cape Dutch buildings and green squares. Cafes, boutiques and lots of very swish shops line the streets - this is a place with serious money. On the outskirts though, the ubiquitous shanty towns line the main roads: hectares of tin shacks on bare dirt, ramshackle structures without running water or toilets. Communal taps were dotted around and there were banks of corrugated iron toilets in long rows. A mess of electrical lines was strung along poles and into various dwellings, but not everyone would have had any electricity supply.

But this is a serious wine growing region and we had a tour lined up. Ferdy, a garrulous South African picked us all up in a minivan and we spent the day tasting wine, tasting cheese, having lunch, having wine, having more wine ...

We ended the day by deciding to go to a summer concert in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in the lee of Table Mountain. Armed with some wine, cheese and fresh bread, we spread out amongst the crowds on a gentle slope on the lawn and, as the sun set, we looked up at Table Mountain and over Cape Town to Table Bay, and listened to Carmina Burana with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra. Magic!