Friday, November 18, 2022

Elgin Open Gardens - Auldearn and Wallovale

Auldearn is high in the Elgin hills and the road is quite long, but it is worth the journey

The gate to the gardens, where we bought entrance tickets and petted the German Shepherd
Beds of red and yellow geum at the entrance

King Proteas and a view down the valley

Lynne had no idea what this beautiful flower was and no idea how to look it up
Then she spotted the familiar geranium/pelargonium leaves behind
and, yes, it is a spiky red Stellar Hybrid Pelargonium

More King proteas

A day lily. Sadly, the pollen of these beautiful flowers is poisonous to cats and some dogs

A lovely flower meadow close to the pond

A shower of pink old roses and some blue irises

A vast profusion of pink floribunda roses

More day lilies

and Bronze bearded irises

A close up

The main house had tea and biscuits on offer. This young woman was doing plant research

A vibrant Alstromeria, also known as the Peruvian, parrot, or princess lily, as well as lily of the Incas
We saw so many beautiful variations of this prolific cut flower in the Elgin Gardens and are very envious
We too have them in our garden but, sadly, the flowers on ours are not at all attractive
and they produce seeds and corms that spread profusely

A view from the edge of the garden, looking over the Elgin valley

and, over more Alstromeria, another view of vineyards

Gorgeous

A spiky weed, beautiful in its own way

A variety of indigenous Arum lily, known as Green Goddess Zantedeschia aethiopica

Wonderfully architectural

We had phoned Nicky Wallace of Wallovale wine farm for advice
and she'd invited us to finish the day with them on the farm and to come and pick some of their abundant roses

So many choices

and, of course, we then enjoyed a glass of their wine
The 2021 Paul Wallace Reflection Chardonnay is so elegant and so enjoyable

Generous, gregarious and welcoming Paul and Nicky Wallace in the Tasting Room

Paul recently had a welcome hip replacement, which is why he is recovering on crutches
We sat on the stoop and enjoyed a delicious glass of the Paul Wallace 2021 Reflection Chardonnay
or the Little Flirt Sauvignon Blanc, named after Nicky
And we bought a couple to take home to enjoy this summer. Thank you both

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Posted by MENU at 11:39 am 0 comments

Elgin Open Gardens - Elgin Vintners and Oak Valley

The next Elgin Open Garden we headed to was Elgin Vintners, which has a deck outside their wine tasting room

and a very competent young violinist entertaining the visitors

The Manor House has recently had its gardens "refreshed"

What are these three looking at? Could they be witches? White witches? Just Fairy godmothers

It's the magical Fairy garden

Enchanting for the younger visitors

A trip through the classic rose garden

All in bloom. We sometimes wish we could import a few truckloads of Elgin soil to Sea Point
so that we could succeed with rose growing. Roses do not like our soil

Time for a dip in the pool?

A large, completely white rose,

a perfect red

and a lovely pink

Old roses climbing up the pergola

and roses for vases

It was time for lunch and we decided to risk going to the Melting Pot restaurant at Oak Valley,
even though we hadn't booked


They very kindly managed to find us a table in the garden and we enjoyed studying the menu
which has lots of "small plates" for small eaters (and large ones too)

A bottle of one of our favourite Elgin Sauvignons blanc, the Oak Valley Fountain of Youth (wishful thinking.....)

The vegetarian Mezze platter was for sharing and was much enjoyed

and a plate of excellently crisp chips to share

A bowl of dim sum Szechuan chicken dumplings in a broth
It came with a very hot and crunchy chilli dip. It did need some  umami soya sauce..

Bun Thit Nong, Vietnamese Pork skewers on a bed of nuts and crisp salad with a chilli dip

Sautéed Baby Squid and potatoes; so tender and full of flavour


The bill for four satisfied customers

As we were enjoying lunch, this freight train came through on its way to Cape Town, possibly full of coal for export

Talented Chef John van Zyl in his kitchen

and on our way out this peacock spied us and decided to give us the full treatment with his magnificent tail
Such iridescence on his body and on the "eyes" on his tail

Truly a spectacle

Next, we headed to the Elgin Market, which is just down the road from Oak Valley;
one of our number had never visited there before
They have a library on the way in and the manager was taking advantage of a quiet afternoon



We had not seen this new covered seating area before

Live music in the main hall

Inside, it is very lively, with lots of different places to buy food and drinks and places to sit to enjoy them and the atmosphere
We were, however, very sad to see that the fruit and vegetable stand was no more
Such a pity, they had some of the best locally grown fresh produce, which we bought often

Onward to Auldern next

All our stories can be seen in the Blog Archive near the top of the column on the right

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Posted by MENU at 10:54 am 0 comments
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