Walk at Bigbay 27/06/10.

Wine tasting at Delaire.

Uitkyk manor house.
Delaire.

Weekend home.

The Beast is back. What great news, the Beast is allowed to play for South Africa again. Now we are cooking again. Lovely morning in the Cape balmy 14 degrees and little wind. Great winter morning. Citrusdal fruit packers have been packing citrus fruit this whole week non stop until 11 o'clock each night. Trucks coming and going and taking oranges all over the country. The majority to Cape Town Harbour by Bosman Transport to go to Europe , The Far East and America. I had another week of fixing forklifts and repairing and welding and organizing. What a week. If this was last year I really would have struggled. At least I now know most of the ins and outs. How good to leave on Friday afternoon and go home in Blaauwberg. Still not riding my bycicle at least the days are going to start to get longer. Racing is on at Killarney can hear the cars practising.

Cape Malay Bobotie

Tasting and a meal at Meerendal very nice wines and food.

All full crates to be packed in boxes.
Each crate weigh about 380 kgs when full and we have a total of 25000 filled crates on the grounds. Empty crates to be sent to farms.

Saterday at home.

Greame Pope Ellis died, he was a legend in canoeing in South Africa. The only guy to win every category in the Dusi canoe marathon. I dont think any body wil ever pass his total amount of wins. I bought my first double with a friende from him for only R500 and paddled a Dusi and 2 Fish in it until it was wrapped in 50 Miler with a novice at Sideshoot. After that all my boats were Popes canoes even with Owen buying his buseness from him. My current single is stil a Popes boat. Now on to current time. We have been packing citrus fruit like going out of fashion. Most of the oranges that is up for sale in Pick n Pay are from us. The best ones go to America and the East plus Europe. The small and damaged ones all go to be pressed for juice. The skins are used to ad orange smell to all sorts of cleaning fluids and disinfectans. So nothing get wasted. I havent sat on a bycicle for weeks now always some lame excuse. Pressure at work is nearly down to normal as you get used to it in the middle of the season. This year we may pack until November.

Snow in Citrusdal 15/06/10.

The first real snow this year. We are packing oranges and nartjies that it is going out of fashone. The biggest harvest in a long time. Every day from seven till tenthirty. Loads of oranges of to the rest of the world. Having 48 forklifts running around the yard at brake neck speed, every day is a mad day. Although some days are better. We are nearly half way through the season. I think we should be greatfull.

Weekend 13/06/2010.

What a weekend start of the World Cup. Bafana did pretty wel. Poor England goaly and so far every thing very boring. We had lots of rain last night and a beutiful morning to go and walk on the beach at Big bay. Made nice stew with game meat. Now it is realy getting cool and drinking red wine. Needed to mow the lawn but well did not. Now waiting for Grant Prix to start. May be it wil be more exciting. Posted some pictures of our walk.

Walk at Bigbay 13/06/10

Walk at Bigbay.

Drive from Citrusdal 2010/06/11

Drive home from Citrusdal . Winter in the Cape. Last picture sunset at Melkbos.

Wacky weekend sunset

Wacky wine weekend

What a day. Robertson looked like Cape Town exploded. We really had some nice discoveries. We luckily had a designated driver so no need to spit all the time. The best wines of the day were all Shirazes and maybe one or two well priced Chardonays.

By midday it started to become out of control, drunken drivers and totally schloshed students - lucky a lot of them were in taxies.

We tried the places that were not so well known and off the main roads and made some lovely discoveries. Had the best burger in years at Rusticus the patty made from game meat. The wines there well, pricy and really weird.

Next we went to Rosendal because of its good reviews on Spit or Swollow. Beautiful setting but the wines hello really not my kind.

Kranskop one of the really nice places, well made everyday wines and really well priced. We then went to Fraai Uitzicht where we tasted a 2004 Merlot - very nice the only wine they make. The oldest wine farm in the area, been there since 1798.

Rietvallei was the next one, a bit of a scrum but they had 3 levels of wine and we went for the top ones only to be poured a milky very off Bordoux blend and then be told that it is an unfiltered wine. Idiots like this should be kept away from serving the top wines. This left a very bad taste in our mouths at this farm and it wasnt the wine.

Then we did a few tastings in town and bought some coffee and then on to Wederom, also a small farm owned and run by a family. Really nice Shiraz this was where I took the picture of the Maserati. Now off to the last two farms. Du Von is a nice small farm on the edge of Graham Beck and they make a nice easy drinking Chenin and a good Shiraz. Then off to Graham Beck where our driver bought us a cheese platter - great cheese and worked well with the wines especially with the bubbly and the Hilltop Chardonnay. Now back home to finish the day off with some good food and some wine for our driver. A day to remember.