This last weekend, we decided on a very last minute note that we should plan a wine tasting tour in Paarl. I was in a mood for an adventure and when the notion struck, it blew me over. I immediately logged onto WineMe.co.za via Face Book Connect and started planning our trip. I used the ‘detailed’ search function, looking for the estates open on Saturdays and Sundays. Dragged the estates we wanted to visit into my planning bar. I Shuffled them around until I was happy with the plan and added our home address as a starting point. I shared this with Leroux via Facebook and he approved wholeheartedly with the plan of action. We downloaded this to GPS, and that was the easiest part of the planning, done. Finding accommodation on short notice and packing bags I actually found slightly more tedious.
We awoke on Saturday morning in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town to find it was raining outside and seemed simply miserable. I almost felt hindered by this but felt for sure that there would a clear sky at the end of the rainbow, which for today, we would call Paarl.
We seemed to be running on schedule leaving the house at 09h30am, with the planner stating it would a 49 minute journey to our first stop. Unfortunately this plan did not seem to take into account the possibility of our encountering not only 1 but 2 sets on road works along the way and as we went I tweeted the journey, to let others know to avoid the M5/N1 turnoff and the 30/45 minute delay on N1 itself.While this was all going on I noticed a tweet from Fairview Wine Estate inviting all to pop in for lunch. Since we had not yet determined where exactly we would like to have lunch I responded and booked a table for two. It was at this point that the road opened up and I saw the blue skies of Paarl beckoning me in the distance. My heart soared. We were not only escaping the miserable weather but we were going on a voyage of discovery.
We eventually arrived in Paarl an hour later than intended. Luckily the rest of our trip went smoothly and so intense was the journey to 7 wine estates ( Landskroon Wine Estate, Anura Vineyards,Fairview Wine Estate, Glen Carlou , BacksBerg Wine Estate, Noble Hill Wine Estate and Laborie Cellars) in the day that followed that I wish I could have filmed the entire expedition to share with you, instead I will dedicate an entire post to each and every one of these unique and wondrous experiences and hope you will follow in our footsteps to the doors, friendly faces and fine wines that welcomed us throughout the day.
March 15th, 2010 10:12 am
[...] Paarl. Our stop at Fairview was not originally part of our trip plan, but as I mentioned in ‘The road to Paarl’ it just so happened that while we were sitting in traffic for over an hour, they had tweeted an [...]