March 24, 2025
We went to Oswald’s bakery as we left town for the day and were thrilled to see them open. The cinnamon-y scent reaches the parking lot, we were excited to try the “twistys” we had heard about. The merchant let us know that everything in the shop was made with sourdough. We left with 2 cappuccino, 4 twistys, savory and apple/almond pastries and a levain loaf. All for < $15 USD, unreal. We ate in the car en route to wine country. We all loved the twistys and could easily imagine my dad loving them as well. Ollie gave the cinnamon pastry 10 out of 10 which made Len then proclaim he gave it 100 out of 100. This escalated to 1000+ until we established we all loved it very much. It’s rare to find any food item we all enjoy (other than cheese pizza or toast with butter). Oswald’s, we’ll be back.
Our first stop was the Vergenoegd Löw Wine Estate to watch the Indian Runner ducks march at 9am to work in the fields. It was hard not to chuckle while watching them run— they just look so ridiculous for some reason. But when standing still, look cute and majestic. We enjoyed a massive breakfast after watching the ducks march past.
We stayed at Vergenoegd Löw to do the art walk. We hadn’t known about this, but felt like a good idea to let the boys stretch stretch legs and for us to get moving after our big morning of eating delicious food. The art walk included 12 different installations across the property. It wasn’t designed this way, but we treated it like a scavenger hunt which helped to get Ollie and Lenny into it. Ollie’s favorite part of the entire day ended up being the labyrinth maze. The playground was not a part of the art tour, but the seesaw within was Lenny’s favorite part of the entire day. This area was just in sight of the patio where where me and Kyle did a wine tasting. The kids didn’t think we could see them so they would end up “battling” (really rolling and wrestling on the ground) much of the time.
We stayed so long that we got to see the ducks returning midday from a morning of working in the fields eating bugs and fertilizing.
A foursome in their 60s who sat near us at breakfast recommended Giraffe House as a stop on our wine tour. Basically a mini Zoo with “some wildlife around that wouldn’t excite a local— but you should enjoy it.” In the car en route, the kids were hungry. They had pieces of the apple/almond pastry. They devoured their pieces but on finishing, Len proclaimed, “I didn’t like it.” Ok, Lenny. There were giraffes, zebra, wildebeest, ostrich and others. The bigger animals were behind two rows of gates which made them harder for the kids to see. The boys’ favorite ended up being the snake hall. They rolled seeing me get goosebumps looking at the snakes and kept chuckling while telling me, “Mama they’re going to escape!!!”
Our last stop of the day was Babylonstoren which came highly recommended from multiple sources with one listing it as, “The most beautiful place I’ve ever been.” After the check-in and a bathroom emergency (crisis averted), we went to get gelato. On the way we saw donkeys and Ollie said, “Snap a picture of that donkey’s jelly beans! They look slimy!” We chuckled but kept it moving to the gelato shop where Ollie had water buffalo gelato and Len had mulberry. We spent ~90 minutes wandering the grounds which were stunning and impeccably maintained. We debated doing another tasting, but didn’t see a playground in sight to occupy the boys and figured it would have been brutal without a distraction for them.
We instead ate an early dinner at the Greenhouse restaurant on the grounds. On the way to the restaurant we walked through another of Len’s favorite parts of the day— the rock assisted gate. This gate would also be another source of conflict for the boys. After sitting at the table for 2 minutes we knew the wine tasting would have been a nightmare as both boys were sent to separate nearby tables for some “quiet time”. For dinner, Ollie had a beef boerewors roll, Lenny a massive focaccia sandwich, Kyle a pesto-ish pasta and I had an insanely beautiful and vibrant looking salad. We also shared “chips” (fries) and the boys argued over which of them had salting rights.
We ended the night back at our house where the boys did a taste test of these monster crunch puffs. They both ended up scoring them as “infinity over infinity” which felt like a high score for essentially Cheetos.
