Hemel en Aarde Valley

 On our recent trip to the Cape ….

… hubby and I spent a few days with his sister Cheryl, and Bob in Hermanus.  For many years we have visited them in their home a stone’s throw away from the magnificent cliff paths lining Walker Bay which is well-known for Southern Right Whale watching, especially in ‘Whale Season’ which is Oct/Nov.   Whales come into the warmer, calmer waters of the bay for calving and it’s such a privilege to watch them frolicking in the water close to the shore.  I have blogged about our trips to Hermanus, with many photographs of the town, cliff paths, the bay and whales.

This visit was entirely different.  They have recently moved into a really lovely retirement village, still in Hermanus, but further inland.  From various vantage points you can still see the sea 🙂    So .. this time around there are no photos of the sea, whales or cliff paths.    I will do a post with photos of a walk-about in the retirement village (mainly to show our children as we are putting our names down there for the future, near or far, who knows !!!!!!! )

Hemel en aarde means heaven and earth.  The valley certainly is!   We have done wine tastings on the various wine farms over the years but this year we decided to do something different … we went walking through the vineyards and conservancy of Bouchard Finlayson.   Firstly we went for a drive as far as Newton Johnson on the R320 mainly to buy a wine opener which I was convinced I had bought my existing one from there and I needed to get another.  As it turns out, it was from Raka wines, further up the coast in Stanford .. oooops! my mistake)    A drive through the valley is not wasted.  How can you not have a little taste or two of magnificent wines !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  😉

Truly beautiful !!   Breathtaking!!!!   that’s the view from Newton Johnson … looking across to a smidgen of Walker Bay and the mountains around which we drove the day before

Newton Johnson, a family run boutique winery established in 1995 is ‘dedicated to the making of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc of outstanding quality’

We bought wines on a previous visit and only have one left – 2007 Syrah Mourvèdre – so naturally we had to buy some more 🙂  .. as we are actually not sure where to buy their wines here.  We need to make a concerted effort to look for them here.   We came away with a couple of Pinot Noir and a couple of bottles of Full Stop Rock (Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre blend) for dinner that evening.  Sadly we didn’t think to get a couple to bring home 😦

On our way back to the car, the owners very boisterous puppy was running around like a mad thing with a sponge in his mouth!!   He loved the game we played with him and ran around and around that large stone, scooting off over pond, path and anything else he came across 🙂

We then stopped at Bouchard Finlayson Winery to get info on the walks …

 

 

Next post :   walking through the vineyards and conservancy of Bouchard Finlayson

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