Jeremy Thompson Catholic PhD in Biblical Languages, Programmer, Runner

On days 10 and 11, we went to visit Christo (my supervisor) and his wife Marli at Hermanus. We visited the local beach for a short time and tasted wine at La Vierge. La Vierge may have been our favorite wine tasting in South Africa. Erica even liked one of the red wines there, which is quite and achievement. A little later we went on a hike through a beautiful valley and were able to see a small waterfall. And, we came back and had a braai.

On the following day, we visited a small local craft market and visited the beach for a little while longer. After saying our goodbyes, we headed back to Stellenbosch and were fortunate to catch one last wine tasting at Waterford. This was another of our favorites because they had a wine and chocolate tasting experience, though we liked the wine at La Vierge better.

Days 12 and 13 (well, actually 13 and 14 – I didn’t start exactly with the very first day of our trip because it consisted all of travel) were our days of traveling home. I won’t include any pictures from there either. So, that brings me to the end of the South Africa pictures. I hope you’ve enjoyed them. In the next post, I’ll tell you a little about what else has been going on since we got back from South Africa …

On day 6, we went to Cape Town to the V&A Waterfront and Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden. The waterfront was interesting, but a bit commercial. There was a nice craft market though with some good souveneir shops. We also went to a restaurant where I tried a number of different kinds of meat common to South Africa: crocodile, warthog, ostrich, springbok, and kudu.

Kirstenbosch was one of the major highlights of the trip. The views there were incredible. And, we got to sea several families of pheasants wandering around freely.

On day 5, we decided to drive the coast because we had heard that many of the businesses in Stellenbosch are not open on Sundays. Then, we decided to just keep driving to the Cape of Good Hope. The views were absolutely incredible. Along the way, we also decided to stop and see the penguins at the Boulders. We finished off the day with wine tasting at the Asara estate. The Ivory was our favorite, and we went back to get a bottle later in the week.

On the evening of day 4, we spent some time in the central part of Stellenbosch, getting around in our little green rental car. Cafe au lait is different – coffee and milk are served separately and you have to pour the coffee into the milk. We also did a wine tasting (partly for free since one of the vineyards was at one of the restaurants in the city).

Rental Car

Cafe au lait

Jeremy Wine Tasting

Erica Wine Tasting

On day 4, we visited my university. I’m including two videos from the walking trail we took which gives you views of the university and surrounding area. In the evening on day 4, we spent sone time in the city center eating an early dinner and browsing some of the shops.

You may notice that there are no pictures from day 2. That’s because we were exhausted from the trip … and our luggage got lost!!! So, we spent our first afternoon in Stellenbosch trying to get our clothes straight for graduation. Christo (my PhD supervisor) and his wife Marli were so hospitable; they provided us with everything we needed (both on this day and every day afterwards). Then, Christo braai-“ed” for us. His cooking (and choices of wine) has been incredible.

The pictures below are from day 3, my graduation day. Erica (my wife) also took a video of me going across the stage. I’ll get that up later, but the pictures will do for now. We attended the graduation ceremony (after I got to spend some time with the other PhD graduates in the Coetzenburg Rugby Club) and attended a luncheon put on by the university afterwards. I got to hear speeches by some inspirational people, like Pius Langa and Ruda Landman.

We came home and took a break, then we went to our first wine tasting. Christo gave us a good start and showed us a glimpse of what is available in terms of Stellenbosch wine tasting.