Wellington. 6050 miles from civilisation…

Believe me. That 50 miles makes a hell of a difference. We popped out to Wellington – more specifically to Diemersfontein – for a wedding this weekend. What an interesting experience.

Maybe it didn’t help that it was raining, but Wellington is nowhere near as pretty as some of the other towns in the Winelands. It also doesn’t seem anywhere near as geared up for visitors. Aside from the KFC and Wimpy (God help us!), we managed to find just one restaurant (D’Olive, if you feel the need) open for that most unusual of mealtimes… er… Sunday lunch. (It was bloody good though.)

In addition, maybe it didn’t help that we had booked into the bewilderingly named La Rochelle B&B, run by a lady who spoke only a smattering of English – Afrikaans being die taal of choice in the Winelands. The name wasn’t the end of the French connection, however; the olde worlde charm of the place included an olde worlde mattress with a depression so great in the middle of it that the Frenchies would have build a damn great viaduct from one side to the other and raised goats in the valley below.  Still, several beers and a bottle or more of the wonderful Pinotage at the reception probably assisted with my getting a decent night’s sleep – and also probably explains the utterly bizarre dreams about treading grapes with gold-shoed Croatian ladies.  

In a final cruel twist of the La Rochelle knife, the “B&B” turned out to be just “B”. 9am, mildly hungover and pretty much exhausted from freeclimbing my way up the side of my mattress to get out of bed really wasn’t the best time to find this out.

“The price you pay are not including the breakfast. There is a good place in town to eat, but I think that they is not open for breakfast.”

Looking back, the wedding was wonderful, I would heartily recommend the Diemersfontein Pinotage – “I’m getting chocolate, I’m getting coffee, I’m getting quite drunk” – and Wellington is another town to cross off my SA list. Whether it will be one I revisit remains to be seen…