Day 3 (Mon, 20/10/14): Darling, back to the Mother City...

I think it's safe to say that churches do not make the greatest of resting places, especially when shared with rowdy, alcohol-fueled characters twice our age who can clearly outdrink us.
That, coupled with church mice, strange noises and the heat, made for a very uncomfortable and restless night.

Nevertheless, we awoke to a gorgeous summers' day in Darling, and we were treated to some fantastic coffee and a apology from Mac in the form of a serenade, from the balustrade of his balcony bedroom.
After a stern talking to, and 3 cups of that fine coffee, we washed up and headed out in to the town for a spot of brekkie and a walk about the village.

After popping all the empties in to recycling bins (responsible drinking?), we settled on a place called 'Chicory Cheese', a cosy, comfortable and relaxed coffee shop just off the main street.
Here we treated ourselves to freshly squeezed juices, consisting of fresh carrots, beetroot, ginger, berries and apples, and meals of buttery scrambled eggs, chorizo sausages, bacon, rocket and cherry tomatoes.

Our next stop was the local butcher, who had a droolicious selection of cured meats, a lot of which we managed to sample.
A couple doors down is the awesome Darling Brew craft beer brewery, which I've been dying to visit. But alas, it was not to be, as it was closed today. Luckily, the Darling Cellar next door was open, and they stocked the beers I required, and a few other items that I happened to enjoy the previous evening. The Withington wines are excellent, as is their 5-year Pot-Still brandy. We even met the winemaker himself, Charles Withington, who was a delightful chap.

All stocked up, we took a casual stroll back up the hill towards the church. At the top of the road is the reknowned Ormande Wine Estate, which The Goose and Renate decide to pop in to. We split up here so I could get a head start on the packing, which I knew was going to be a frustrating game of Tetris.

At 15h30 we were packed up, suited & booted, and ready to depart. We hopped on Big Red, gladly noting that the puncture repair job that I'd done the evening before was still holding up.

We hit the main street and headed off towards Cape Town, cruising at a lower speed until the tires had warmed up sufficiently. The winds were pretty rough, and as we hit the coastline we were smacked by the cooler temperature of the coastal area, a welcomed relief from the wall of heat the we kept bashing in to throughout our travels in the north and west.

Table Mountain welcomed us home, standing tall and proud beyond the city, as did the 5pm rush-hour traffic. Even with the fully loaded bike we still managed to weave through the bumper to bumper 1-man transportation units, making it back to the southern suburbs in such good time that we felt we deserved a quick wetty at our local pub and social headquarters, Mambos.

 

Well, that's it for this trip, I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did. Thank you to all our supporters and viewers, keep liking and commenting. Thanks to all our hosts - Alfie Horton, Mac McKenzie, and Renate McKenzie - for looking after us and having us crash at your homes; thanks to Gordon Gloyne and Stephanie Elysee for inviting us to join their family farm trip; special thanks must go to Grant Jose Marrow for his awesome gift of a leather bike jacket for The Goose, what a treat, thanks bud! And most importantly, thanks to The Goose, Juanita Parsothum, for joining me on these trips and always keeping her cool even when she's boiling in the heat, lacking in some much needed sleep, or bouncing across unruly gravel roads. I'm so blessed that you're sharing my motorcycle adventures with me, and being such a crucial character in the stories.

We'll be off on another trip in a couple months, one that's set to be very exciting, so keep watching this space...