Eat, drink and be merry...

And so it was time to move on again, this time to De Hoop nature reserve, a little further down the coast. Our host in Mossel Bay, the brilliantly-named Tertius, had suggested an alternative route to the motorway, involving a hand-pulled car ferry and some nice views, which B was a little dubious about, but I thought sounded great, so we set off in the sunshine.

We reached the 'car ferry' after an interesting drive down some deserted gravel roads the car was struggling a little with, just as it started to rain. The ferry was actually a small metal raft, attached by pulley cables, and the river we had to cross was flowing fast. There seemed to be no-one around and it was a long way back to the alternative road. B gave me the look of 'S, why did we have to come this way?", and we were considering whether we would have to operate the thing ourselves, when three men appeared from behind a little hill on our left - the ferry men! They didn't really speak much English, but between us we got the car onto the ferry and began the journey, the three men heaving the thing across, looking for a decent tip, to which we obliged.

After reaching dry land, we drove on until we reached the nature reserve signs and headed down yet another bumpy gravel road to our lodgings for the night, which was owned by a rather strange family who took energy and money-saving to new highs. We were brusquely checked in by the hawkish mother Annette, and taken to our 'luxury chalet' by Caspar, the 17 year old overweight, sweaty, grinning son, who was to feature later. The chalet was large and cold, but hadn't been updated for about ten years and luxury was not a word we would necessarily associate with it, as a big beetle crawled out from under the sheets..but hey, we would make the best of it.

As we were in the middle of nowhere, we headed to the restaurant for dinner - which we discovered was to be cooked by none other than Caspar! The only other guests were a party of four students, also looking a little bemused. I suggested we had a whiskey to warm us up before the meal, and asked for it to be served with some water at the side, but it was not to be - they served us a shot of cheap whiskey, drowned in a tall glass of tap water - yum! Dinner consisted of lukewarm Heinz tomato soup, followed by microwaved beef roll, and stodgy vegetables, finished with half-frozen Sarah Lee-type flan cake, all to a loud soundtrack of muzac favourites on the stereo behind B - needless to say we spent most of the meal in hysterics and we won't forget the evening in a hurry. We headed back to the chalet as soon as we could, only for all the electricity to be turned off at 9.30pm just before we heard the sound of Caspar's car driving off for the night - it mysteriously came back on in the morning, just after the sound of a car arriving to sort out breakfast..

After a better-than-expected breakfast, we headed into the reserve itself, which more than made up for the accommodation's shortcomings, as it was beautiful. The sun shone as we ran down the biggest sand dunes we've ever seen and watched tens of southern right whales frolicking by the shore, the most awesome creatures to watch. After some more fun running around in the sand, we realised we were completely lost and had a slightly stressful half an hour trying to find our way back to the car - those pesky sand dunes all look the same after a while!

Not deterred, we drove further into the reserve to find the circular drive they had billed in the leaflet as 'showing some of the highlights' of the park. Ignoring the sign at the entrance which warned that the track was only suitable for 4x4 vehicles, we carried on and almost ended up finishing off the poor VW Polo hire car along the hugely bumpy, potholed road, and we didn't even see a single animal! - certainly the last time we'll ignore a sign like that, doh!

Once back on tarred roads, we said goodbye to wilderness and drove on to Hermanus, the self-proclaimed 'best town for land-based whale watching' in SA. We stayed at Moby's hostel, which was fine bar a dubiously itchy bed and the fact the evening karaoke downstairs was competing with the church choir next door - not sure which was worse!! We did see some fantastic whales in the morning and it was a really charming little place to stay, with a great Italian deli, at which we enjoyed a mega plate of antipasti and great coffee.

Moving on again, we hit one of our favourite areas, the winelands of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. We stayed first in Stellenbosch at a laidback, long-established hostel. Having survived driving through one of the worst storms we encountered via several mountain passes and SA drivers trying their best to take me out, I let B drive us to our first wine estate, Morgenhof, for a big fat lunch and some great wine. We tucked into three courses, including some of the best carrot cake ever, and it was still only 25 pounds for two - bargain! We barrelled our way back to the hostel for a lazy afternoon in preparation for the following day's wine tour starting at 10.30am.

The next morning we met the other participants in the 'easy rider' wine tour, which handily started at our hostel, including three 21 year old med students from London, a 40 year old life-long traveller from London and a really lovely couple, Sarah and Mike, on a seven month trip in Africa, from yes, you've guessed it, London. The three Dutch students rolled their eyes as we reached the first wine farm of the day and the noisy English contingent leapt out of the van shouting for wine. It was going to be a long day.

We started at Simonsig, a great place, with a demo from our driver and tour guide Tiri Tiri, of how to open a wine bottle with a sabre sword, and then it was on to the wine, from sparkling cap classique, through whites to reds, all of which came in half glasses with no option but to drink it all before a refill - it was terrible.

Feeling slightly wobbly, we moved on to Fairview estate in Paarl, which also made seriously good cheese and had lots of goats milling around. As well as some awesome wines to taste, we also had access to the cheese tasting, which we managed to go round almost four times, as well as getting through some seriously good (and expensive) wines from the generous bar staff, who were very happy to bend the rules on how many wines we were able to try.

Thankfully, we then headed for some filling lunch and animated (OK, slightly drunk) conversation with our new friends at a local restaurant, which helped to steady the legs and prepare us for the next stop at Dieu Donne in Franschhoek. The farm enjoyed one of the most beautiful settings and produced some lovely wine, before we headed to our last farm of the afternoon, Boschendal. I would be lying if I said I could remember the wines we tasted there, but I'm sure it was good and we all made it back in one piece.

After a quick coffee, we decided it would be stupid to stop there, and carried on with the cheap, but good, red from the bar, setting the world to rights and swopping travelling plans. You'd expect us to have made it long into the night, but as we had started at 10.30, by quarter to ten, and after about four bottles of wine each we later calculated, we were done.

Surprisingly, we felt a little delicate the next day and cancelled our 11am tasting in Franschhoek, instead lying in and taking our time to drive to our next place, which was back to flashpacking, in a beautiful little cottage right by the mountains in Franschhoek itself, also the gourmet capital of SA. We headed straight for lunch at yet another wine farm, Haute Cabriere, which was really good, and I even managed a glass of gorgeous pinot noir.

Having slept off our over indulgence, we headed out the next morning for a tasting at Mont Rochelle, a lovely little place right by where we were staying, followed by lunch looking out at the mountains and a final dinner to top the lot that evening. We headed for the Tasting Room, for a six course gourmet dinner with wine, which was really amazing, especially the fact you could choose two puddings, although we did have a bit of a food 'whitey' at the end and made a vow to take a break from stuffing our faces, at least for a few days.

The next morning, we headed for Cape Town, our current base for the last couple of weeks, which we've really loved despite some miserable weather. We've been staying in a cool little studio apartment right in the centre, which has been great for some crap TV (including many of the same TV films we saw in Italy!), home cooking and lazing around. We've spent a fair chunk of time booking and sorting the next leg of the trip, but have managed to fit in some great meals by the glorious beaches, a brilliant horse ride on the deserted Nordhoek beach, high tea at Cape Town's poshest hotel (amazing cakes!!) and a memorable trip to see the penguins at Boulders Beach.

We plan to climb up Table Mountain tomorrow if the weather is good enough, which should shift some of the extra pounds we've put on in our successful attempts to become the Barrelmeos, and will give us some lasting memories of Cape Town and SA before we fly to Hong Kong on Wednesday.

So, until the next time, hope you've enjoyed it, let us know what you think and keep in touch!