17 August - The Wine Tram

It is early morning and I am reflecting on yesterday's activity: a wine tour by tram (and the headache I am currently experiencing).

I had seen the 'Wine Tram' on a list of the top things to do while visiting Cape Town. The accompanying photograph and text suggest a day trundling through a quiet wine valley from one isolated vineyard to the next, jumping off to enjoy the wine on offer. The reality was somewhat different. Firstly it is some miles from Cape Town. Secondly, having boarded the tram at the very chic town of Franschhoek - a stretch of small, white colonial style buildings housing expensive looking shops and restaurants - you then stepped off it some three or four minutes later at the first vineyard from where, looking down the curve of the track, you could see under a kilometre distant.... the beautiful white buildings of Franschhoek. The second vineyard was hardly any further and the tram line itself ran parallel to, although admittedly a short distance from, the main road along the valley floor. Any subsequent vineyards you wished to visit required you catching the tram back to Franschhoek and then getting a trolley bus on from there.

                                                  

To make things more entertaining you could choose from one of eight different routes, each signified by a colour (we were yellow in case you were wondering). In reality this meant you might not be allowed off the tram at the first stop and then, once back at Franschhoek, if you were red or blue you might be permitted on one trolley bus but you might not be allowed on another with, say, the purples. And the purples might find themselves permitted on a different trolley bus but this time only with the reds.... Colour segregation is still alive and well in South Africa it seems, except this time it’s so much more complicated!

We trundled our way between the two vineyards on the tram line where at each stop we were collected by the 'Taste Tractor' that pulled our open sided carriages to the vineyard itself for the wine tastings (why not a 'Vintner Van' I wonder - more comfortable - or a series of 'Merlot Motorbikes' - more exciting!). We sat in beautiful surroundings and enjoyed fabulous views and wines before heading back to Franschhoek for the next part of the tour.

This is where things fell apart, albeit temporarily. The complexity of the system led us to being directed onto the wrong trolley bus and instead of ending up at our next vineyard on the valley slopes we found ourselves at the end point with a group of people who were finishing for the day. However, another trolley bus was redirected to pick us up and we finished the trip high up in the hills overlooking the Franschhoek valley drinking wine as the sun was dropping in the sky.