Would you like a shot of Olive Oil?

December 28th started slowly.  The crew slept in as we did not leave on our adventure until 9 AM.   We headed over to Stellenbosh for wine tasting and more.

Our first stop was a winery called, Vergenoegd.  They use Indian Runner ducks to eat the snails from the grape vines.  We arrived almost exactly at 9:45 AM, which just happened to be the time of the duck parade.  The girls loved it and the estate was beautiful.  I am not sure if 10 AM is too early but that is when we had our first tasting.  I would say we enjoyed the wines.  The estate also had an olive oil tasting experience.  Lara, Troy, Kari and I sat down and tried our hand at olive oil tasting.  This did require taking a small shot of olive oil.  There were 3 different blends to try and after extensive research we created our signature blend.

L and T at Vergenoegd 

Grapes=wine. Oranges=OJ.  Which is on your training table.

The estate 

Our choices 

Our team of experts create unquiet olive oil flavors

The final product

#selfienation+our guide: Martin

After that we travelled into historic Stellenbosh.  Great city, lots of little shops and a crazy mix of architecture styles based on the Dutch and the English who settled here.

Older Dutch Style: steps up to a stoop and a thatched roof

Old University of Stellenbosh buildings 

The Vines

After Stellenbosh, we stopped at another winery for flat bread pizzas, wine, microbrewed beer and DNA splicing. the winery was called Remhoogte.  We tried several great wine.  The flatbread pizza were barbecued chicken, feta, caramelized onions and more.  We saw a couple of zebras and one Quagga.  Quagga is an extinct animal that the University of Stellenbosh is trying to breed back into existence using DNA from hair of a stuffed Quagga in their museum. 

The owners of this winery are also the descendants of Sir Thomas Cullinan. Who founded a 900+carat diamond.  From which the diamonds in several of England's Crown Jewels come from.

Martin, judging the girls photo contest

After that we stopped at a crocodile farm. I think the kids had a good time. No one lost any fingers or toes!

Ashley and the Croc

Abby and the Croc

Elle and the Croc

Now this is a Croc

Whoa!!!!!

We stopped at a Lion sanctuary next.  They take in lions and occasionally a tiger that have been mistreated and cannot be returned to the wild.  It was cool but a little sad after seeing free lions do their  thing.

White Lion

After that it was back to the hotel for dinner and bed.

Cape of Storms

Sunday is usually a day for rest and relaxation, but not for us.  We met our guide Martin and our driver Shaquille at at 8 AM.  Shaquille will be referred to in any future comments as Shaq Fu or the Diesel for clarity sake.  

We left the hotel and traveled south out of Cape Town to Fish Hook and Simon town and then out to the Cape of Good Hope the southwestern most point of Africa. We also saw Cape Point with its light house.  This is the part where my wife checks out because a lot of these pictures don't have anyone or anything in them. 

Martin, our guide is fascinating with his take on the evolution of South Africa and it history.  He is a great guy to see SA with.

Cape Point upper light house 

The crew at Cape Point

Don't feed these Baboons

Cape of Good Hope

Family and the Atlanic Ocean 

Lower lighthouse and WW II battery

From the lighthouse, back towards Cape Town.  The clouds coming down Devil's peak

The Cape of Good Hope

Kari and I on the Cape of Good Hope

Ashley, Katie and Gracie on the way to the lighthouse 

Girls on the steps to Cape Point lighthouse 

OK, sit back and smoke a cigarette and drink your brandy.  It is time for the art house portion of today's photos:

The stairs

Cape Point Lighthouse 

Where is the Thomas T Tucker

Cape Point reserve

Ok, the Cape Point Reserve was fascinating, much more arid then I would have ever guessed.  It is home to baboons and steenbok.  We didn't see any mountain zebras.

Baboon

The alpha male

Steenbok 

Hiking to the wreck of the Thomas T Tucker

Simon Town Harbor 

Let's end the day at the pool.

The Great White Hype/Hope

Dec 26th was a day for some different adventures.  Some adventures were great, some were small, some were fun and some were dull.

Troy and Lara played 9 holes of golf in the morning.  Rental clubs and refurbished golf balls. Troy chipped in at some point.  It sounded like a pretty great morning.

Kari and Lara took the girls to the mall to spend their Santa gift cards and shop.  In SA no one knows what is on your gift card so you have to guess or run back to the info desk to verify.  They were at the mall with 6 girls for over 5 hours.  There were also 10,000 South Africans on holiday there as well.  This may actually be the 7th level of hell.  They did survive which is somewhat surprising.

I was picked up at 7:30 and rode 2 hours down to Gasbaai, SA.  The purpose was cage diving with Great White Sharks.  I dove with a company call Shark Lady which has hosted other celebrities like Brad Pitt, Prince William and Prince Henry. We departed at 11:00 and we're chumming for sharks by 11:30.  3 groups of 5 or 6 would go into the cage and wait for the sharks.  Here is the problem, this time of year the visibility is crap.  If I stuck my hand out, I probably couldn't see my fingers.  The best views were from the boat.  We did see white sharks, 5 of them and one was big.  I think it was 5-6 meters in length.  It looked huge!!!  We had a couple come out of the water to get our tuna bait.  The best photos were from the deck.  I took some Go Pro video not sure how good it is, since my Go Pro took on water during my time in the cage.  On the bright side I met a really nice British family.  We had a great time in the taxi and on the boat.  They are actually friends with Dr. Tracey, who developed the Birmingham Hip Resurfacing system.  They have some shark photos from the boat.  They are suppose to email them to me. Hopefully that will happen.  Overall, cool but not epic.  I may have to scratch this itch again down the road but I can cross it of the bucket list.  

We had an amazing Greek seafood and lamb dinner and promptly went to bed.

No photos from the dive, the mall or golf.

If the blog had sound effect it would be whawhawhawha.

Hopefully, I will update this with some photos in the future.

Cape Town Christmas

The Christmas morning actually came a little earlier than expected.  I figured the Anseth girls would sleep till at least 9.  It was the first day since we arrived without a 5 AM wake up call.  I was wrong Gracie's internal clock is wired for 7:30 AM regardless of time zone.  Santa was able to find all of us here in Cape Town.  The blessing of Gummi Bears, chocolate and gift cards are easy to fit in his sack.

The Christmas morning selfie.

I think most of these people are crazy.

Luckily, they are my kind of crazy.

Merry Christmas from the Anseths

Merry Christmas from the Butners

We enjoyed a great Christmas brunch.  Grace ate more ham at brunch then she has in the entire rest of her life.  The weather was beautiful.  You really couldn't have ask for a better day.

The family at brunch 

Kari and Lara 

After a brief afternoon rest, we ventured out for an evening activity.  We travelled to Stellenbosh, SA wine country, for a hike.  4.5 km up the hill to watch the sunset and the full moonrise.  There will not be another Christmas full moon for something like 20-30 years.  Troy organized it and checked out the details  but again we had a driver that needed TBSwiss iPhone magic to get us to the hike on time.

The family and the hill we needed to conquer.  I tried using remote controls for my new 35 mm camera to take this picture.  If you look closely I am looking down at my phone to see if it fired.  Kind of felt like Clooney in Oceans Eleven when they are trying to blow the vault.  You lose focus on this game for one second and this is what happens.

Ashley and Abby solving the worlds problems

Kari and Lara discussing the easy route up.

Wines lands

The Von Tramp family at the top enjoying the snacks.

Sunset and Table mountain 

The hills are alive with the Sound of Music

2 thrill seakers enjoying the sunset

#selfienation

Full Moon Rising

The hike down.  Check out my sweet headlamp.

We were the last family of the hill and it was pretty dark when we finished.  I was quite relieved to get to the pick up point without a serious wrong turn or fall.  We pile into 2 separate trucks to shuttle down the last bit of hill.

 On our way down, my truck encountered another hiker who was injured.  Ashley reminded me that I was a doctor and should go help.  I hopped out to take a look.  He had a pretty big cut and it was bleeding pretty significantly, but it was stopping.  One of the staff gave him a shirt and I helped/instructed him to hold direct pressure on it.  We got him down to the office.  I changed his dressing and basically just talked with the family who were on vacation and a little shook up.  The fire department showed up and gave him some oxygen, pain medicine and got some proper dressings. The downside of staying is that 9 other people had to wait for me.  I do know the family of the injuried hiker appreciated me sticking around.  Made the day a lot longer for everyone.

Christmas is a day to count your blessings.  The blessings of Jesus birth and gods love.  The blessings of friends and family that love us unconditionally.  We are on a great adventure.  My family is with me to enjoy this.  We are here because along the way many people took time to give me the right advice, encouragement and love when I needed it.  I hope I can do it as well for my children, family and friends as they have for me.

Merry Christmas.  God Bless us everyone!