So, successful day today. Decided that my touristy stuff is being far too disorganised and as I'm only spending 3 days each in the Far East stops, actually got on and booked my tours for while I'm in Asia, so now my days are fully booked for Singapore, Bangkok & Hong Kong. Bali is sitting by the pool drinking cool drinks, so no planning required there!!

Had lunch at the house & then back to Stellenbosch to try & get the walking tour at 3pm. Went early, as I wanted to go to the Village Museum, which has 4 houses, restored to cover some of the key periods in Stellenbosch history, all of which are very authentic and very interesting. They have a lady in each house who tells you a little of the history of each & then you can wander around and take photos (I promise I was restrained on the photo front!!).

What was interesting was the development of accumulation of possessions as time went on. All the houses were of well to do people in Stellenbosch for their period, but it was a shift in the use or display of wealth. The early houses were quite spacious, but possessions were limited and mostly useful or functional, but as you moved from the 1700's through to the 1800's and Victorian period, the houses accumulated more & more possessions, furniture etc. What also was surprising was the size of the early furniture, the dining table in the earliest house barely came up to my knee and the chairs about half way up my calf - I know people were shorter then, but it's amazing how much modern medicine and diet has affected our growth and size.

What I also found interesting was the fireplace thing - apparently there was some kind of fireplace tax, so each house had one big fireplace in the kitchen, I mean huge, and hardly any cooking ranges of the kind you would expect to see in old european houses. The Victorian house was a complete change from the earlier ones. Structurally it was similiar in shape, most houses here are a traditional H shape, but everything else was different. The rooms were smaller and crammed with furniture, it had some truly horrible wallpaper and everything was dark compared to the comparatively light & open houses seen in the previous years. (also did the fairly sad thing of looking at the stuff & thinking "My Gran had one of those").

Went to the Tourist Info for just before 3pm, to get on the Walking Tour and it looked like I was to be disappointed again, as you apparently had to have a minimum of 2 people, but the guide thankfully was happy to take just me. The Walk was an hour & a half and was really interesting. She told me about the history & development of Stellenbosch and as I'd just been to the Village Museum, she amended the tour to cover other stuff instead.

She explained why Stellenbosch is called the "city of oaks" (to provide their own oak barrels for the wine industry) and the issues they are having with sickness & fungus in the oaks right now. Covered the founding of Stellenbosch by Simon van der Stel (who was so fond of his own name he named the town, a local mountain & who knows what else after himself) and it's development and progress through the early periods and the affect on architecture of the change in ruling between the VOC (that's the Dutch East India Company to you & me) and the British and the switching back & forth for a number of years. We looked around restored & preserved houses which had been saved by Dr Anton Rupert (who set up a foundation for it), the Arsenal, she explained the history of Die Braak and some of the churches as we walked around the centre of old Stellenbosch. She also pointed out a restaurant that is known locally for it's cheesecake, so may have to pop back there for an afternoon tea!!

All in all, a very well spent 90 Rand.

Home late afternoon to soak up a little late afternoon sunshine and then Maritha's fabulous mince cauliflower dish for tea. It sounds weird, but believe me it was fabulous!! I will be getting the recipe & trying that at home!