This post is coming in a bit late, but we have been quite busy with work and visitors, so better late than never. Back to our trip to Cape Town: we saved the best for last, planning a horse ride in the Cape Winelands for our last day. We drove out about an hour and a half to the wine lands, and there were quickly introduced to our steeds for the day: Tennessee, Baruk, and Memphis. Mine was Tennessee, an ex-polo playing horse. She was a tall chestnut mare, and lots of fun.

The stables were beautiful, nestled underneath the Simonsburg foothills. Our ride took us through these mountains on a five hour trek, broken up by lunch at a wine estate.

The first section of the ride took us through vineyards and orchards. We rode through plum and peach orchards, fig trees, lemon trees, grape vines, passionfruit hedges, and more, the crushed fruit and dry grass underfoot creating a beautiful aroma to ride through. After riding for about an hour and a half, we stopped at the winery.

Approaching the gates of the wine estate.

The winery is beautiful, full of plants and intricate gardens. I especially liked these hanging gourds.

At the winery - the Babylonstoren Wine Estate - we did a small wine tasting of four wines. I’m not a huge wine fan, so just had a sip of each, but I did like the first one we sampled: a light Rosé (typical of me, I can’t remember what it was called…). Then, it was on to the tasting plates - delicious, colorful, and fresh. We split two between the three of us.

This was a fruit, cheese, and nut platter.

This one was a cold fish platter, including our group favorite, the smoked snoek, which Cape Town is known for.

Then, it was back to the horses to climb into the foothills.

Before heading out on our second half of the ride, we tried to get a group picture. The horses, however, were not having it; they were raring to go and had no time to pose for photos. This was the best we managed: