National Express turned out to be the cheapest one. With their BritXplorer pass you can travel anywhere in England over a period of 7 days (hop-on-hop-off based) for only £79 per person. The catch? You must have a foreign passport and you better hope that there’s space on the coach, else you wait for the next one.

Just after noon on a Saturday we made our way to the Victoria Coach Station to get our hand on 2 BritXplorer HOBO passes.

We decided to head South, as it’s closer than Scotland and most probably a lot warmer. Our first stop: Brighton.

The lady who issued our BritXplorer passes told us that some bus drivers might not know how these passes work and if that’s the case we should just call one of the yellow bib staff members. She was wrong. Non of the bus drivers recognized these passes and we had to explain the whole thing over and over again throughout our journey as there was no yellow staff members to assist us. No wonder it’s called a HOBO pass. Luckily we manage to pull of a plea everytime to secure our seat on the coach.

The coach from Victoria Station took about and hour and a half to get out of London. It’s a big ass city, that’s for sure. We had to change coaches at Gatwick Airport and arrived in Brighton just before 5pm. (3 hour journey) – Normal one way ticket to Brighton: £12

After an adventures 2 days in Brighton we hopped on the coach just after 9am on Monday morning and arrived at out next destination just after 1pm. Although Bournemouth looks like a seaside town that got stuck in the 70′s, it’s a friendly place full of pensioners and students. A single ticket from Brighton to Bournemouth: £19

Our next stop was Newquay, situated on the South West coast of England. The nice thing about travelling by coach is that you get to see all the other coastal towns on route. Some had a lot of charm and others looked down right dodgy. The sightseeing killed some time and we eventually arrived in Newquay at 8:30pm – 7 hours later. A one way ticket from Bournemouth to Plymouth (where you have to change coach) costs round about £32 and Plymouth to Newquay costs £7.

After two gorgeous days in Newquay it was time to head back to the hustle and bustle of London town. We managed to secure two seats on the coach and left the lovely surfer’s town just after 2pm. We arrived at Heathrow airport at 9pm and caught our last bus back to Victoria station. A single ticket from Newquay to Heathrow and Victoria normally costs £41.

It turns out our HOBO tickets were worth all the pleaing and begging  after all as we saved £32 each. We also had 2 days left to travel anywhere in the country but unfortunately we had some other obligations to attend to back in London.

I would highly recommend the BritXplorer pass to anyone who plans to travel thought England. Lets hope however that National Express inform their staff about these passes, otherwise you can be sure to feel like a HOBO.

Butterflies ruled my stomach a week or so before the journey. 7 Weeks away from home is a long time. Leaving my 2 cats behind left a tear in my eye. But they were in good hands. I knew that we will return to 2 big, fat and spoiled rotten fur balls thanks to my dear friend Martin.

All the excitement made me forget about the reality of traveling. We left Cape Town International on Friday the 17th of July only to arrive in Dubai at around 5am. There we had to endure a 16 hours stay-over before boarding our flight to Heathrow, London.

Whoever said Dubai’s airport is big enough to wonder around for hours is definitely mistaken. It takes round-about 20 minutes to walk from the one side to the other. Most of the shops at duty-free are replicas of each other and it took us about 4 hours just to convert their currency to Rands. When the clock eventually struck 12, we decided to mission for a well deserved beer at one of the restaurant. Options where limited and the prices were shocking! R160 later we sipped on 2 Peroni’s as if they were gold. Needless to say, we only had one round.

Minutes felt like hours and the fact that we had no sleep did not help our situation. We jumped with joy when our flight eventually boarded and an overwhelming feeling of excitement made me rush.  Lets fly!

So with all this going on, I got curious. How do the big boys, like wine.co.za, food24.com, 2oceansvibe.com etc handle server issues? I guess they got professionals employed to deal with theses kind of problems.

With curiosity in mind I thought I’ll do some comparisons between winetimes.co.za and some of the big blogs / sites in South Africa . Just to see how much they’re up against . Here’s a few Alexa charts, comparing winetimes.co.za pageviews with the big boyz.

winetimes.co.za VS wine.co.za

Wine.co.za – South Africa’s number 1 resource for anything wine related.

winetimes.co.za VS capetownmagazine.com

capetownmagazine.com – An inspirational site and business for me personally .

winetimes.co.za VS watkykjy.co.za

Watkykjy.co.za – One of my favourite places to visit online.

winetimes.co.za VS imod.co.za

imod.co.za – A South African blogging pioneer.

winetimes.co.za VS 2oceansvibe.co.za

2oceansvibe.co.za – The young Hugh Hefner of South Africa.

winetimes.co.za VS food24.com

food24.com

Interesting to see we peaked pretty much at the same intervals as food24.com.
Now what big food or wine story happened in the middle of March?

It was not just an off-road vehicle, it was like a family member. We did not have nick names for it, or called it Landie, it was The Land Rover. It demanded respect. It was big and bold with a no nonsense attitude. I still have fond memories driving around the rough Namaqualand west coast, wind and dust in my hair with the woing woing sound of the clutch paddle spring in my ear, every time I shift gears.

So when I recently received an invite to go and test-drive the new Land Rover Discovery, I jumped at the opportunity. The fact that we were to do a bit of off-roading on the Malan’s farm, Simonsig, made it even more attractive. Now, Land Rover and myself came a long way since the days of bundu-bashing  in Hondeklip Bay. We both moved to the city and embrace technology which made life a bit easier.  We both swapped business partners a few times, me currently with Madame de Wyn and Land Rover currently with Tata and thanks to the guys from the Land Rover Experience I had the opportunity to re-connect with this long lost friend.

The Experience (without Hendrix) introduced us to the skills and techniques we needed to tackle many different off-road terrains with our Discoveries. I realized all the rough edges I remembered from my youth have now be smoothed out and driving off-road was as simple as just turning a nob on the left, right.

After (read agian, After) getting re-acquainted with Land Rover, Jan Malan invited us to taste his wines. Now, normally this is where I’ll write endless paragraphs on how good or bad the food and wine were, but  not today. If you do not know Simonsig’s wine, your seriously missing out. Don’t  take my word for it, go and try the Frans Malan Reserve. A spicy blend of Pinotage and Cabernet Sauvignon. Or if you need something to go with your Landie, try the Aurum Chardonnay, easily my wine of the year so far. Orange skin with nutty flavours, a truely kick-ass wine.  I can go on here cause the layers are packed on this one, but this is probably not the place.

All and all it was a day of great memories for me, some old ones and some new. I can only thank Simonsig and Land Rover for the best Experience by far.

Anyhow, the real floppy for this competition seems to be their  T&C, not to be confuse with G&T’s. Last week a producer made me aware of this, and I thought I’ll share some of the more interesting terms & conditions.

How much will it cost to enter your wine:

• R1083 / wine entered and
  R2793 / winning wine
• Six bottles must be submitted with each entry.
• 120 bottles of each winning wine will be allocated, at trade price, to Top 100 SA Wines cc
• The entry fee is non-refundable
• Winner must be prepared to supply up to 60 bottles of each winning wine for the Top 100 SA Wines Consumer Festivals at 50% of trade price. ( Jesus!! that’s almost freee )
• Winners must supply 6 bottles of each winning wine to Top 100 SA Wines cc for promotional purposes in SA during the remainder of 2011. (oh and this is free)
• If your wine(s) are selected as winners, a further R2793 per winning wine will be payable immediately.
• Winning vineyards are obliged to purchase a minimum allocation of 20 Top 100 SA Wines annual consumer guide books to sell.
• Official Top 100 SA Wines self-adhesive stickers will be available for purchase on http://www.top100sawines.co.za
• Winning vineyards are encouraged to fly the Top 100 SA Wines Winner flag which is available for purchase on www.top100sawines.co.za or from our offices.
• Winning Vineyards are obligated to communicate with their marketing database to announce the news of one or more of their wines becoming one of the Top 100 SA Wines
• Winners must be prepared to supply up to 20 bottles of each winning wine for each of the Consumer Festivals at 50% of trade price.

So show hands! Who entered?

Need I say more!

For full details visit the website top100sawines.co.za

Websites low down on the list do change rankings on a daily basis. I therefore thought it would be interesting to record some of South African’s Food and Wine blogs rankings today, and maybe revisit the rankings in a few months to see how things progressed.

If you want to check out the ranking for your site, you can do it here.

The destination: Hillcrest Wine Estate

Having a beer festival at a wine estate gave me a faint optimistic suspicion I may very well find some vino here. So off we went to the  famous cousin of wine’s festival.  On the pesimistic side I really thought parking would be impossible to find close to the venue, so we parked on a dusty hill, far far away from the action.

I can now report back that I was wrong about the parking situation. I spotted a few open slots almost at the festival and by then it did cross my mind that I might be wrong about finding wine here.

As we strolled down into the quarry – yes I forgot to mention we partied in a hole in the ground – I noticed a fair amount of festival goers, tents and a nice hippy-stage (21st century translation: trance-tent). Upon approaching the pay-point, to hand over our R30 cover charge, the security guard all off a sudden became very excited, looking directly at me. My mind started to wonder over short-term discretions I might have committed. I did get that “PO-LEECE” feeling and as I was about to stick my hands in the air and scream “Wasn’t me!!” the security guard said: “You’re not that famous Afrikaans singer?” ………….Yho, only if he had arrested me on the spot for not cutting my hair, but an Afrikaans Pop Star. Ouch! That hurt pass my first and half-way into the second beer.

Onto the beer. They had a fair  variety of  brew, stretching from Belgium to Darling. I enjoyed my usual Duvel but what interest me more was the total lack of Boston, Jack Black and skinny jeans.

The first wine I spotted was a Naughty Girl 2010 Sweet Sparkling Rosé. Emphasis here on sweet.

At R50 a bottle the Naughty Girl spread quickly over the festival grounds. R80 got you  two Naughty Girls if  you were interested in starting a threesome. In this case a sweet and sticky affair. I think the residual sugar is around 75 g/l.  For some weird reason wine producers still think low budget consumers love sweet wines. For a little while these Naught Girls ruled the festival’s wine kingdom until Hillcrest Rose jumped on the scene. The girls really had no chance, and were quickly replaced.

It did not take long before every wife/girlfriend had a bottle of Rose for every husbands/boyfriends pint of ale. That been said, this Rose was of the manly kind. Made from Cabernet Sauvignon, it’s a lovely off dry with an off-road-leadbase-petrol-colour that will excite any manly man in the same way as seeing his mud covered Jeep in the office parking lot.

So needless to say  some of the guys also opted for Hillcrest.

Official Report Card: Success! Beer was center stage, but we could get wine, beating Synergy at Boschendal six love on that department. On the festival. Beer variety was great but would have loved to hear some original music instead of cover bands.

The objectives:

• To find a few bands I’ve never heard before, and might like.
• See what wine the party-goers were drinking. (It’s sort of a hobby I do. Think of it in the lines of bird watch, just without the binoculars.)

Now objective one was not to difficult. I’ve been exposed to a fair amount of music festivals in my life, and the local festival circuit is very much like wine media launches, always the same faces.

What I could remember, after keeping it real for a few hours, were:

• Van Coke Cartel guitarist, Jedd-Eye Kossew, add a new extra edge to the Cokainers. I really want this band to work for me, but I just can’t get to grips with their sound. It’s a bit like a watered-down Fokofpolisiekar, for obvious reasons. That said, 406 HQ theme song could very well be Van Coke Cartel’s Buitenkant II, seeing that we’re based on Buitekant Street. Yes I know it’s corny but I just like the simple connotation. Call me Mr Corn if you have to. Overall there were just to many Fokofpolisiekar aftermath bands at the festival.
• I also remember a band call The Rescu. They seem to go the One Republic route. A commercial sound that could do quit well.
• No one’s Arc were again impressive. I can’t say I’m fond of the first few Johnny Clegg sounding numbers, but got really into it at the end when they stepped it up to the more Santana vibes.
• Then there were, Hog Hoggidy Hog. Last year a guy stage-dive and land 5 meters from the stage, flat on his face. I had the privilege seeing the upper part of the guys index finger point 90 degree backwards. This year I was amazed that nobody broke an arm or a neck. The mosh-pit was ridicules and no other band at the festival could get the crowed going the way the Hogs did.

Official Report Card Note: If you can’t find current international artists to preform at your festival don’t bother, rather just pay the local bands extra. They need it.

Onto Objective Two, which was not as simple. At the bar was a list of the usual suspects: Black Label, Castle, Hunters, but NO WINE! This constituted an immediate fail on the Report Card. We were on a wine estate, with no wine! I can’t investigate with nothing to investigate. I did whoever found these undocumented specimens in the crowed.

The Sunday night after the festival I attended the eatout.co.za awards, where Boschendal poured their cuvee’s for 300 elite guests, while ignoring the 5000 odd party-goers, in their backyard, during the weekend.

The story of the South African wine industry in a nutshell.

I am concerned to find that, Annareth Bolton CEO of Stellenbosch Wine Routes, is a reputable affiliate with a site that hosts a forum where Stellenbosch Wine Route members are improperly criticized for bad service, experiences, including slants on the greater Stellenbosch tourism industry. Your affiliation causes the visiting public to assume your feelings are similar to those shared by the so-called “Wine Flies” on the site www.spitorswallow.co.za.

…

Mr Coetzee also post something similar on gumtree. I need to point out that the only affiliation Spit or Swallow had with Stellenbosch Wine Festival was a link Annareth added on their website http://wineroute.co.za/welcome.aspx, which was subsequently removed.

We also need to clarify, Mr Coetzee, that most of the reviews on http://spitorswallow.co.za are actually positive and complimentary towards the wineries. Just because your farms got “criticized for bad service, experiences, including slants” do not assume its the same for the whole of the Stellenbosch area. Maybe if you pull your head out your ass and focusing on treating the South Africa public with a bit more respect, they will stop slinging shit at you.

The rest of the email criticized the new format of the festival and at the end he criticized how bad the pervious format was. Sometimes it’s just astonishing how disconnected people can be from reality.

Anyhow, if you were at the festival, feel free to tell us how it was for you. Read our experience here: 2010 Stellenbosch Wine Festival – The best to date

The curious thing about this delivery was not the content, but the packaging. It came in a linen type bag, see here:

Normally with these kind of drop-offs the packaging is either a once-of-box ready for the recycle plant, or some multi purpose beach bag with the product’s branding all over it. In this case we were totally stumped. What do you use this for and evermore intriguing, where and when can one use it again?

After busting our brains for a couple of minutes we came to the conclusion it’s a Amarula Ball Sack.
Like any good ball sack it holds some liquids and yes, some balls.

And just like a ball sack, when the juice comes out the sack becomes useless.

So without boring you any further, what do you think we can re-use it for?