Jeff and Courts do Stellenbosch & Signal Hill

Today is South Africa's biggest test - wine tour time. Those of you that know the real SA (South Australia), know how unbeatable our wines are. We've dabbled in some SA (South African) wines throughout our trip, but as you can imagine, the choices are limited in the small town liquor stores.

Our group (still not ready to let go of our over-landing friends yet) get picked up by our tour guide for today, Charleston, around 9am. Charleston seems cool, except for this weird obsession he has with his boss 'Ferdy', who apparently won South Africa Big Brother one year. Apparently we're in for a "crazy day", just the way Ferdy likes it.

The wine region we are heading to is Stellenbosch, one of the most famous in the country. We drive for an hour or so to our first winery of the day, Fairview. It's a cracker of a day, weather wise. We admire the huge Koi Fish in the pond out the front, then head in for breakfast (cheese and wine).

The tastings schedule here is different to what we're used to and we like it. Instead of going from bubbles to white, to red, it's choose your own adventure. We choose mainly reds and a few freebie tastings outside of our chosen six are thrown in also. We are told when and which wine will go with our cheese and do as advised. We end up purchasing some cheese and wine. So far, so good SA.

Next stop is the Spice Route. This wine tasting is a little more structured. We taste 2 whites and 3 reds, none worth writing home about. That's ok though, because the Spice Route also offers beer and chocolate tasting. We head off to beer taste, the rest of crew goes for the choccy. Lame.

We sample 5 beers, 2 out of 5 being acceptable, unless you're into wheat beer. We are not. The winery is very big and impressive. This particular winery overlooks vineyards, with a mountainous back drop. An exceptional looking landscape.

The third and last winery of the day seems to specialise in sparklingly wine - vom - so we don't bother to remember it's name. We stop in at the Stellenbosch town itself. It's pretty military/uni looking and we hop out for a brief tour of the town.

In comparison, the views in the Stellenbosch region are the most breathtaking we've seen, but you just can't beat a Shiraz from McLaren Vale or the Barossa.

On our way back to the city, our last item on the itinerary is watching the sunset from Signal Hill. But first, a quick detour to one of the most happening clubs in town (I'd just like to point out its 5:30 in the afternoon), clearly a directive from Ferdy. We look around and all we can see is the most hippest and gangster Afrikans going around. We politely decline a visit and off to Signal Hill we go.

We get to the top of the hill and it's clearly the place to be come sunset, the hill is rammed with tourists as well as locals. We wander around, check out the sweet view of the city on one side and watch the sunset over the ocean on the other. Brilliant, as always.

We head back to the hostel for dinner while we wait for our misplaced laundry, then it's of to our new loft accommodation around the hill at Green Point.