South Africa
Cape Town, Franschhoek & Sabi Sand
From June 18th to June 25th, 2023
Day 1
We flew out of Kigali on Rwanda Air at 9am. Almost 3 hours later our flight landed in Harare for a quick refuel, then we were off for another 3 hour flight into Cape Town
We were picked up at the airport by our guide, Malcom, and he drove us to our hotel One&Only near the Victoria Waterfront.
After a long day of travel and a serious change in climate (we went from hot safari to cool, windy, southern temperatures), we took it easy the rest of the night by touring around the Watershed shopping area, had drinks at Sin & Tax, then topped it off with dinner at Asoka.
Asoka was the highlight of the evening, their cocktails were well balanced, the food was local, the clientele was lively, and the atmosphere was comfortably hipster and somehow romantic at the same time.
Day 2
We started our day with a car tour around the entire Cape Peninsula. Stops included Camps Bay, the ‘most beautiful drive in the world’ around Chapman’s Peak, a quick hello at a friends house in Kommetjie, a mini hike and lookout from the lighthouse at the Cape of Good Hope and New Cape Point, penguin sightings at Boulder’s Beach, and the final stop at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden where we saw an African spotted owl.
Dinner that evening was at Fyn and cocktails after dinner were at The House of Machines. We had just barely missed the live music, but imagine it’s a great time when the bar is in full swing.
Day 3
Our final day in Cape Town started with a 10:30am excursion to Table Mountain. We bought the fast track tickets and took the cable car up to the top of the mountain and had the full city view for about 5 minutes before it started lightly mist-raining.
We headed back down to town, walked around the waterfront area picking out final gifts for family and sat for lunch at Tigers Milk.
After lunch we said our goodbyes to Julia as she headed back to the states to resume normal living. Max, Hailey & Norm continued on with the South African tour of wine country. We drove through Somerset West, a part of the Stellenbosch wine region.
The first stop was at Morgenster where we did both a wine and olive oil tasting.
After Morgenster we continued onto Vergelegen (which translates to ‘established far away’) where we tasted some great wines in a beautiful wine room, then walked to lunch at their restaurant called Stables. We had traditional food, drank more wine and went off to yet another winery. We stopped at Waterford Winery and took down another flight of 5 different wines.
Feeling pretty good, and with Waterford reminding us that it was closing time (around 5pm), we made it to our hotel at Leeu Estates, which was an absolute oasis. It’s hard to describe just how magical this place was; it was all things: remote, manicured, private, classic, beautiful, peaceful, serene, artistic, unique, charismatic, inviting and welcome. We wouldn’t stay any other place when coming back to Franschhoek.
Day 4
Spent a little time at the gym in the morning before we ran to catch the Franschhoek wine train in town. The only problem is, the train wasn’t running that day (somehow nobody caught this). We were planning on taking either the grey line or the red line, as that what was recommended by the concierge at Leeu. We decided to hire a driver to take us around to different wineries all throughout the area that were also a part of the wine train stops. We went to Dieu Donne, Haute Cabriere, La Bri, Le Lude (where we met YPO friends) and Protege (back in town). Between all the stops, Haute Cabriere was the hands down favorite, and lunch and tasting at Le Lude.
We ate at Le Petit Colombe for dinner, the restaurant at our hotel.
Day 5
We woke up at 7am to leave the hotel by 8am for the airport in Cape Town to take us to Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport for our next few days of safari in Sabi Sand. We landed around 1pm at the Kruger airport, and took another private 20 minute charter flight to Singita Sabi Sand. After a quick lunch, we were geared up with whisky roadies in hand and ready to go in our safari vehicle by 3:30pm.
We saw: zebras, antelope, and our first leopard (she was resting). We headed back to the lodge to warm up, have dinner near the fire, and head to sleep.
Day 6
We woke up at 5:30am to a wake up call, prepped ourselves by 6am and headed out for our morning safari ride.
We saw all Big Five in 1 day: within the first hour of our ride we saw a male lion with 6 lion cubs, a hawk ripping a small snake to pieces in a tree, hundreds of buffalo in a watering hole, & elephants, a leopard chasing a monkey in the top of a tree (the episode lasted about 15 minutes until the leopard tired and came down from the tree), 2 white rhinos at their own watering hole, and 2 male lions (brothers) sleeping until the end of their day.
This night we had dinner in a bbq area on property and enjoyed the traditional song and dance that the hotel and local villagers put on for us. Yes, Hailey joined them dancing.
Day 7
Our next day of safari started at 7am
We saw: a pregnant hyena, guinea fowl, hippos, antelope, we tried ‘tracking’ a pack of wild dogs (to no avail), zebras, and a hyena carrying a dead jackel.
Around 9:30am we called it a morning and went to the hotel to have breakfast, pack, and take a flight from Kruger to Victoria Falls. At breakfast we actually saw a leopard chasing a snake just in front of the hotel, but the snake hopped in the water and wiggled its way to the other side before the leopard could have her taste.
We flew out of Sabi Sand to Kruger on Federal Airlines and then to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe on Fastjet.
Next time we visit, we plan to check out:
Franschhoek: We meant to have a dinner at Petite Ferme as it was recommended to us by many people
Franschhoek: Waterkloof Winery, Steenberg Winery, Graham Beck Winery, Grande Provence
More time in Franschhoek
Watch:
Blood Diamond movie
Invictus