Today is vineyard tour day. 10am start at the tasting table of Paarl Vineyard. Josh was distracted by Eugine at the cheese tasting table. He wasn't brave enough o try the smelly one!!!
The lady kindly gave Josh some special juice in a wine glass so he didn't feel left out!!
Cellar tour in Stellenbosch. I'm sure wine making is in the school curriculum?!
And more tasting!!!!
This vineyard uses ducks as its natural pesticides for the vines. There are over 1,070 Runner Ducks live here. They head out in the morning and enjoy a day of eating slugs & the like & then head home at 3.30pm for a well earned rest. We were there in time to watch then coming in, it really was a great sight of waddling & quacking. They were very regimental and waddled in one big group home for the, night.
Ostrich Day!!!
Out and about in Ostrich land. Ostrich farming is huge in this area with fields and fields full of them. We had a tour around an Ostrich farm where the lady showed us the hatchery, we were permitted to hold an egg with an embryo still inside, it was very heavy.
The mother lays her eggs one at a time into the nest the father has prepared for her, she will not sit on her eggs until she has laid them all which could take up to 12 days. She will then sit on the eggs in the daytime as her feathers are brown & she is camouflaged from predators. The father then takes over for night duty as his feathers are black, he does have beautifully white feathers which he camouflages with sand before taking up his post.
We were shown all the different shades & textures of feathers with the male having the most beautiful whitest & softest. We were also given a demonstration of feather dusters being made. We were then taken out to meet these fascinating birds, Josh got to stand on an egg as they we super strong & we all got to feed them some corn.
Then it was time for sitting on or riding an ostrich & Josh jumped at the chance to go for a ride! It was hilarious to watch, he was a bit shocked at first as the bird just took off but thankfully one of the trainers somehow kept a hold of him and once he got going he loved it!
Just to finish off our oscrich day we had oscrich steak for dinner. It was very tasty and very much like steak not chicken as one may think coming from a bird!! It may have been cooked on the BBQ but we certainly weren't eating it outdoors as the temperature dropped greatly & it was freezing!!! By the log fire it was!!!
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