I've done boys. I've done groups. But this was my first time doing a weekend away with a girlfriend.

Tanya and I set off to investigate the pleasures of Tulbagh, an oasis 136km from Cape Town filled with Wine, Food and Tuisnywerheid and framed by the looming, baking hot slopes of the Witzenberg and Saronsburg mountains.

We arrived at the luxury five-star Rijk's boutique hotel and guesthouse around 6.30, just as the light was fading. At Rijks you get all the service of a hotel in a quiet country setting. So hand over your car keys and expect to find your bags delivered to your room when you arrive, after a welcome glass of fruit juice at reception.

 
Yes, it's the kind of place where you may as well get used to having your needs taken care of.

Giving in, we showered off the Friday city stress and dressed casually for a dinner on the wide veranda, with its panoramic views of the mountain in the sunset. The dry rockfaces seem as if they were once painfully dragged out of the earth using huge sky hooks, but in the cooling evening they're peaceful, and as calming as the chilled glasses of Rijk's fine wine.

This is the kind of setting where what you eat matters much less than where you eat it, so dinner is definitely a worthwhile part of the Rijks' experience - although I'd have to say the food isn't quite up to the five-star standard of the accommodation.

Consolation can be found in the fact that the adjacent vinyards' wines are all available by the bottle or by the glass and it's probably good to taste the range, rather than knocking back one varietal in bulk (I liked the semillon most of those I tried).

We hung out on the veranda of our room after dinner, before crashing into white cotton sheeted feather beds.

After a long, late sleep there's nothing better than a swim in the pool, steaming plunger coffee in the room and a long breakfast on last night's veranda.

We spent the rest of the morning in the pool, then under umbrellas lounging in the cushioned deck chairs reading magazines.

Cape Town gets slightly chillier by end March, so this weekend escape was a way to squeeze the last bit of real sunlight out of summer. We could have stayed there all day... Rijk's is self-contained enough that you really could simply occupy yourself with swims, meals, magazines, television and (for the compulsive work worrier) some weekend email-checking using their business facilities.

But what about the rest of Tulbagh?

Blasting the aircon against the 35-degree heat, we drove the 2km to Tulbagh and wandered along Church Street, checking out the touristy little shops and restaurants in the Cape Dutch houses that line the quaint road.

Church Street is a centre of activities linked to the yearly Cape Dutch Food & Wine Festival .The quiet lunchers at the various roadside eateries and the sleepy heat gave no hint of the parties, farmers' market, wine tastings and other revelries planned during the month of March every year.

We picked our way through art galleries and shops, finding small points of amusement, spotting tiny but beautiful or memorable things - like the street lamp with hole glass that was almost completely full of dead moths, rainbow bubbles clinging to the bark of a tree, and a folder full of Japanese erotic prints in a junk and antiques shop run by a man who put it bluntly when he greeted us with "What can I sell you today?" Hot and tired, we mooched back to Rijk's for another swim before supper.

Forty's, where we ate in Tulbagh town that night, might just be the weirdest place I've ever eaten.

They insisted we pay in advance. The reason given was that crowds of customers caused chaos with bills, but we were the only people there who were ordering food (everyone else just seemed to be knocking back the booze at the bar). They seemed convinced we were from overseas even though we obviously understood Afrikaans fairly well.

But the food was very good - an Indonesian menu. Turns out that a couple of restaurants - including Rijk's - also have Indonesian food planned for the Dutch fest. Because, as one restaurant manager bluntly put it, "Dutch Food is actually really boring."

I guess if I were raised to eat only bread, cheese, ham and chocolate milk in a freezing flat marsh for the rest of my life, I'd also go colonise some warm continent with spices and big mountains and swipe a few recipes along the way!

After dinner? More sleep.

Waking to birdcalls, the smell of acres of white roses and a morning dip. Breakfast on the veranda with the Sunday paper... You get the picture: Life's tough in Africa. But you get used to it pretty quickly, if you really try hard.

Oh, and by the way, I'd definitely recommend the girls weekend away to anyone who hasn't done it yet. Women aren't nearly as smelly or messy as boys, make far fewer demands, and are a lot quieter and less work than a big group.

Unlike when you go with a lover or a group, you really get time for yourself, but also someone with whom to share random thoughts - even the odd secret

Source: News24.com - www.news24.com

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