The hills of Groot Constantia

A fresh southeaster blew into town today, giving us cloud cover over the slopes of Constantiaberg and Vlakkenberg. The latter looms over the oldest wine farm at the Cape, Groot Constantia, where the vineyards now stretch high up into the hills overlooking the old manor house and cellars. There were many school outings to the estate when I was in primary school and I haven't been inside in years, but I doubt they would have changed the furniture or repainted! New buildings dot the estate to accommodate the commercial side of a wine farm - restaurants, wine tasting rooms, etc., but the old buildings still maintain the character and charm of the Cape Dutch architecture, and the avenue of oaks remains to let us recall the days when access to the farm was by horse-drawn carriage.
We took a different route to make it a longer walk today, and started off with a windy walk through verdant vineyards, the vines still heavy with bunches of tightly packed, tiny black grapes on the lower third, while the upper fruit has already been harvested. A surreptitious tasting revealed that these were fine grapes indeed, sweet with large pips and thick skin - wine grapes, definitely not for the table. We saw them everywhere, except for a section on the upper slopes where the grapes where white and slightly larger, but as sweet. At the bottom of the hill, there was a sign admonishing us not to handle the grapes! But they were good.
Our different route took us up a steep track that rose relentlessly with a total elevation over the whole route of 250m, so plenty of cardio there for everyone! The vineyards at the top are still young and the area was windswept and unprotected from the fierce southeaster, so I presume they have planted for a special result in the cellar in years to come - perhaps a whiff of salt air in the nose!
From time to time we came across a sugarbush with beautiful blooms to admire, and a lone Erica peeked out from behind some scrubby bushes, but in the main it was vines (of course). It will be a magnificent sight once autumn sets in and the leaves turn to burnt orange, umber and gold - I saw a single vine in the rows that was ahead of its time and took a photo to capture its lone statement that it was time to turn.
A lovely cool walk of just over 6km with endless views.

Watching the ducks feeding in the pond

A smile at last

Slowly up the hills - a wonderful bunch!

Anybody home?

Loitering

A very, very steep hill!