… minutes, if you take the N1 out of Capetown, heading north-easterly-ish, you’ll find a turning off signposted to Paarl. Take it. It will lead you into a world that is bucolic and pastel pretty, awash with gentle greens and golds and umbers and blues. On either side of the road, a rolling swathe here, a sweeping expanse there of neatly organized fields, plush with vines, as far as the eye can see. And all against a gloriously undulating backdrop of mountains and foothills. It’s a rich, fertile, picture-book scene that repeats itself over and again in endless variety, soothing and enlivening at the same time. Sounds too good to be true? Not a bit of it. Paarl is a veritable pearl of a region – but on a large meandering scale. Here, you’re in the heart of the Cape’s wine-making country, but with none of the usual tourism board shouting or fuss to herald its business.
You’ll find, as you saunter along – it’s far too pretty to put the pedal to the metal – the odd restaurant and wine/making/tasting establishment advertising its presence, but it’s all very low key. Which is quietly very wonderful, I think: no gaudy signs and gushing hype to spoil the gentle loveliness of it all.
So if you are ever lucky enough to pass through Paarl, make sure you find time to drop in at Under Oaks. Purely on a random whim, we did. And so, too, did Clint Eastwood apparently – about a fortnight before us. We know this for a fact because Annelize, who runs Under Oaks, joined us under the knarled and stooping old oaks in her courtyard, and told us so. 
Annelize is a born hostess and a total delight. Her food is served with love and care and she has created a glorious little idyll of hospitality, of fey and charming individuality. Here, alongside the alfresco tables and chairs with their plump little squabs of cushions and fluttering tablecloths, you’ll find an old barn housing a selection of art works (for sale, if you wish) from a local gallery. Its cool dark interior a salve for the eyes on hot sun-drenched days like last Saturday. A well-tended herb garden sits in fertile array just outside the kitchen door; the old oaks – bent of limb and craggy trunked, providing a glorious dappled shade canopy to relax under – are adorned with a quirky selection of bric-a-brac. An ornate bird cage (unoccupied) hangs from one bough, a couple of large wired stars from others; flowers, ceramic butterflies and lizards cling to trunks, float on wire from twigs: it’s all slightly odd and utterly charming at the same time. But Annelize’s menagerie were the icing on the cake for us. And a tame rooster called Vulture was definitely the star. Pecking around our feet for dropped crumbs, he (very) gently pecks the feet too – when he wants your attention or a second helping. Talk to him and he listens intently, head cocked, maintaining earnest eye to eye contact all the while. A born charmer, this dude, with a coxcomb that’s taken a crazy swerve to one side, so that it flops over one eye. And when you stop talking, why, Vulture starts in polite earnest – heck knows what it’s all about, but up and down his little cries go, staccato gobbling a hurried little aside here, making an eye-rolling, long undulating whoop there. His girlfriend, we discovered, is not so sociable or talkative, but then she was busy in a plant barrel, hiding beneath a flowering something or other, brooding a new clutch of eggs. And besides, why should she bother – Vulture, it is clear, can charm and talk enough for the two of them. Two dogs (one a Shiatsu type; the other a tiny little fur-ball weighing only 1.23 Kgs), a couple of pot-bellied pigs (Babe and Belinda), some sheep,and a couple of cats completed Annelize’s little zoo.
The food was good – I followed Clint’s example apparently, and chose the salmon fishcakes; Dick had an excellent chicken pie – no relation to Vulture we were assured; and after lunch Annelize put some music on. Now nobody can be more Bah-bloody-Humbug about canned public music than me. I hate, with a baseball-bat-wielding vengeance, being force-fed other folk’s choice of easy listening. Ferchrissake’s – this is the day and age of the iPod and head phones and there’s just no excuse for such wholesale inconsideration. But Annelize’s choice of gentle vintage bistro, was absolutely perfect for the setting. All that was missing was the cracked and crackly wind-up gramophone. But even with a (slightly) better audio system, Annelize’s French café music, nicely muted, the bitter-sweet refrains wafting lightly on the hot summer air was inspirationally spot on. But then everything at Under Oaks conspires to keep you lazing away the afternoon in easy companionship (whether of the four or two –legged variety), loathe to leave its gentle timelessness, and hurry on. So next time you’re ever Capetown bound, please take a little trip to Paarl and spoil yourself with a leisurely sojourn at Under Oaks. Annelize and her delightful hospitality will make you terribly glad you did. Besides, Vulture will be pleased to see you too.
Boatwise it’s a slightly different story. We’re still trucking on, of course, trying to find solutions to all the snags – particularly those that must be rectified before we can set sail once more. The autopilot probably tops the list – it’s turned out to be more than just air in the system and through no fault of our own, it looks like it’s going to cost us a pretty penny to put right. Details to follow later, once we’ve gathered a few more facts. We’re also still trying to establish why the sail drives leak oil, but no success so far. Another must do is to test the watermaker properly again – just to make sure it really is sorted (after all the whoflungdungery of the last one, we’re taking no chances). And the other essential gotta-do before leaving Capetown is check all the rigging (again) and try to figure out why our foresail profurler drum is squeaking! It’s not the bearings, we do know that.
Of less pressing concern, but a bloody nuisance, is the lack of hot water now. Dumb thermostat seems to have failed on the mixer tap. It’s a lie, too – cold showers are not healthy either for body or soul: even on a baking hot morning, I promise you, they do nothing for my sense of well-being at-bloody-all.
But the snag list is shrinking – no matter that it seems to take weeks not days to finally knock problems off the roster. The rub being that it takes time to identify the cause of the problem in many cases – especially electronically-based headaches. And this boat has more than its fair share of electronics. If you have little in the way of an electronics-based background, it’s a steep learning curve and no mistake, but gradually, you acquire the information you need and make the right contacts, get the right advice and progress ensues – albeit rather falteringly. And there is absolutely no doubt about it, liveaboarding is a crash-course in getting to know your boat inside and out.
RSS - Posts