12th August
Oudtschoorn to Stellenbosch
After breakfast we headed south from Oudtschoorn and made our way back to the coast
A brief pit stop at the CP Nel museum (which I believe was the home of one of the original ostrich barons)
On the way out of town we spotted some highly mournful looking ostriches
On route 62 we passed by Ronnie's sex shop, apparently in the tradition of Australian outback pubs but somewhat more dodgy
We decided to not hang around and instead headed to the Montagu Country Hotel for a spot of lunch
Some more high speed views heading into Stellenbosch
(there was fairly extensive efforts made to divert through Franschhoek but a lot of road closures for some reason)
Eventually we arrived at our lodging for the night- Marianne Wine Estate (
Home | Marianne Wines)
The regular accomodation staff were apparently all away on holiday so there was a bit of a wait while the tasting room staff attempted to multitask- we filled this time with a few glasses of sav blanc (the humanity
) and a bit of a snoop around- apparently they have a line in honour of Francois Pienaar of 1995 Rugby World Cup fame- to the best of my understanding he has no further association with the estate beyond his name being on one of the wines but I could be wrong there
As the sun was setting we were taken to our room, which was delightful
We were feeling quite lazy so chose to dine at the restaurant on the wine estate- Floreal (
Floréal Brasserie at Marianne)
I started with the rosemary baked camembert with red onion marmalade, and very good it was too
I think for main I had Coq Au Vin, which was either really good or absolutely forgettable, as I don't have a picture to offer up!
I finished with the chocolate fondant which came with the biggest slab of honeycomb I have ever seen! Bigger than the actual fondant in fact
This was excellent and washed down with vast quantities of very nice wine. All in all a great meal and stay