Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Day 19: Akkerboom Cottages to Montagu

Today started quiet and uneventful. We left the lovely Akkerboom cottage shortly after sunrise, and set on our way to Montagu - a fairly long distance of about 40kms away.

The first 5-10kms we walked in the shade of the surrounding mountains, making for a cool, almost chilly walk. After the big climb of the previous day, today was pleasantly undulating. After walking for a few hours, I mentioned to Wouna that this seemed like one of those plain, uneventful days you can summarize in a couple of short paragraphs.

This was not to be the case, however, not if a certain Stuart Byrne had any say in the matter... As we walked past an impressive looking farm called Mont Byrne Estate, a stout, blonde man on a tractor waved at us, shouted a greeting, and we started a long distance chat/shout, explaining where we came from and where we were headed.

'Do you want a bottle of sweet wine?', he shouted. Of course we were not going to decline. 'Come in, make yourselves at home!'. After showing his family the strange people he picked up from the road, we were served coffee, and then Stuart enquired whether we've ever bottled our own wine. Next thing we were escorted into his private cellar, where his 2008 port was lying ready for bottling. 'Grab some bottles and fill them up here,' he said. With the bottles filled, he showed us how to cork them, and then we were off to his office to do the labelling. Great fun.

Turns out that, in addition to the Mont Byrne boutique winery, Stuart also owns the Montagu Wimpy. So, besides giving a us 3 bottles of wine, he also arranged with the Wimpy manager to deliver burgers, chips and fruit shakes to us around lunchtime, wherever we were on our way to Montagu.

We left quite amazed. What a great experience. And what an amazing, jovial, full-of-life man.

The rest of the walk was fairly uneventful. A couple of lift offers (as we get most days) a very nice Capetonian couple who stopped for a chat (the guy is himself a keen runner and was wearing a Puffer t-shirt), and as promised our en route Wimpy lunch 15km from Montagu (thanks again, Stuart!).

We arrived at our destination, the Mystic Tin and Karoo Brew(ery) Backpackers, a place every bit as quaint and interesting as it's name suggests, where we were warmly welcomed by our hosts, Wayne and Kirsten. Wayne offered us each a glass of his home-brewed ale - a great end to a very intersting day.

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1 comment:

  1. Moet ons dalk met 'n waentjie kom en solank bottels kom laai - jy lyk so oulik met die bottel proses!

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