Our 39th Anniversary!

Lots to do today. We got up early, ate breakfast (The Cullinan has a really excellent buffet, with every variety of breakfast style one could want, and my favorite, fresh-squeezed OJ!) and checked out of the hotel. It's Easter Sunday and the roads were fairly empty, so driving the the Royal Cape Golf Club was easy. The club dates to the 19th century, and the layout was great. The design is a parkland course,lying beneath the mountains that ring Cape Town, relatively narrow with mature trees lining the fairways, and water hazards that were obviously drier than during the height of the South African summer. The fairways were flat, so walking 18 holes was a pleasure. The rental clubs were many steps above what we had available in Botswana or Zimbabwe, and were easy to play with. I even birdied 16! The wind was near gale-force, probably over 30 mph, so down-wind holes were definitely easier than holes into the wind. According to other golfers, "this is the windy season!"
After lunch at the course, we drove to Stellenbosch, in the western cape wine district, and are staying in Franschoek nearby, in a nice little hotel on the main drag. We'll walk down the street to a nouvelle cuisine restaurant, and I think we'll try a little South African wine! Actually, we've been drinking wines from this country during our entire stay in southern Africa, and are impressed with the quality, value, and variety of the choices available. We were able to make reservations at a nearby restaurant, Reuben's. Franschoek and this whole area are very much in the flavor of Napa/Sonoma with much more impressive mountains. We realized that now in early April, we have hit the harvest season (translate early fall in the southern hemisphere) and there are gusty winds, falling leaves, the whole harvest picture! We had a wonderful meal - our best of three months. Peter had a terrific rack of lamb and I had a lovely Cape salmon and shellfish dish. Wonderful flavors, great SA wines, and all for about 1/2 of what a high end meal like this would cost in California wine county. This is a strongly Afrikaans area - the first language on signs and speech is Afrikaans and then English, but otherwise you might find it heard to believe you were in Africa, if your only impresson of Africa is jungle and wildlife. Southern Africa is wonderfully multi-dimensional and South Africa has a very complicated and multifacted composition. We have only seen a small slice of this country and perhaps we will return to see other sections of SA that are beyond our itinerary this time. A wonderful anniversary day - full of delightful scenery, fun and new adventures with my soulmate!