Nick here...

We stayed in Franschhoek at the Rickety Bridge Manor house and winery, what a magnificent venue with beautiful lush lawns and klms of sweeping vineyards shadowed by the awesome Franschhoek mountains. The morning commenced again with a fantastic breakfast, yes another big fry up followed by numerous complaints by some individuals of expanding waistlines. After breakfast we drove into Franschhoek village which I would best describe as similar to Hahndorf in the Adelaide hills.

The boys, as instructed, followed the girls as they meandered on a casual walk through the village frequenting the odd shop or two. Timo and I became somewhat concerned that the mode of the girls would escalate to a shopping frenzy. Needless to say the battle was lost and the girls went mad making purchases of craft items, Batik, jewellery and somehow Judy managed to sneak under Timo's guard, a handbag purchase, guess what colour. Well done girls... mission accomplished.

Eventually we departed to our first winery. To our surprise the 'Franschhoek Uncorked' wine festival was on that weekend...what great planning by the boys!!!

Our first wine tasting was at the Chamonix winery where we sampled award winning 2013 wines across a range of whites and red wines. We were very impressed with their quality and the variety of wines.

Next to Glenwood a classic boutique winery located in the Robertsvlei valley a few km from Franschhoek. The location was absolutely beautiful! Glenwood produces excellent cultivar wines and is certainly a stand out as noted by the number of awards they achieved in 2014. One of Glenwood's friendly staff members was particularly outstanding, a new recruit of some two weeks who took the initiative of leaving the bottles of wine at our table for us to help ourselves to the wine tasting. Now that is how to win the hearts of your customers ! We all left very happy and a little inebriated.

We returned to Rickety Bridge Manor House and winery where we retired to the lounge and continued to partake in a few more bottles of vino. Timo kept on fuelling the open fire with wood to the extreme, I think he has pyromaniac tendencies! Judy and Loz then found some board games, I seem to recall participating a little before falling asleep curled up in front of the cosy fire.

Goodnight!!!

Quote of the day - "a girl can never have enough handbags or shoes"

Sunny 18deg