Shopping in Hermanus

Sue and I slept in this morning. We almost missed breakfast, and that would be a BIG mistake! Although Sue gave me a little talk this morning about how I would need to make friends with our treadmill again when we go home, I could not help myself and ordered the full breakfast (eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, and white toast) when I sat down at our table. Everyone else showed some restraint, so I felt a bit bad about that.

misty-mountains-behind-our-lodge
The sun tried to work its way through the clouds and mist that hid the mountains behind our B&B from view for much of the morning.

It was raining again when we woke up and it looked like it might be cloudy and rainy for much of the day. What to do? Well, one old guy (by that I mean a LOT older than us) and his wife, upon leaving the breakfast room, recommended we go visit the Lembu Art Gallery in town. Why not!

When we met the Dycks downstairs, all ready to go — they were wearing their snazzy red and green rain jackets and had hiking poles in hand. What’s this? Are we walking to town? No, let’s take the car.

We parked near the center of town and headed for the art gallery. Not NEARLY as exciting as Mr Old Guy made it sound, although Sue did come out with a little shopping bag in her hands. We wandered around for a while, and then decided that this would be the perfect time and place to look for rain jackets for Sue and me. And after not too much ‘shopping’ we found some!

Well, after all that ‘work’ it was time for lunch. We’ve been looking through some discount coupons we got from our friend Helene (in Sea Point, Cape Town) and we found a coupon for a restaurant called ‘Lemon Butta’. The menu looked okay. We went up the stairs and got a good table where all four of us could sit and look out into the bay (where big Right Whales play in October and November). All we saw were divers looking for crayfish and a misty horizon. We ordered fish (Hake) and chips — except for Sue, who ordered a salad. A couple of old-timers at the next table interrupted our conversation a few times, giving us some ‘advice’ and sharing some local insights.

After lunch we took a short walk around the bend from the point and saw a few ‘dassies’ (Rock Hyrax, or rock badger) relaxing and playing on the cliffs. Robert and Arlene took the car to go look for some special ‘port’ while Sue and I started along the cliff walk heading back to our B&B. It was cloudy, not hot, very comfortable for a walk. Along the way I got a Facetime call from Alex and Max — it’s Thursday morning at home. They are leaving for Grand Forks after school today. Max was happy and interested in seeing the vegetation and the ocean and beaches on our walk, and was quite talkative. It was great to visit a bit and show him where we were.

We got back to our room, showered, changed into the clothes we’d bought in town earlier today. Then we joined Robert in our upstairs ‘lounge’ for happy hour. I called Lizette’s to make a 7:30 dinner reservation.

We headed out onto the street at 7:15, walking the 10 blocks to the restaurant. We got an outside table and ordered, but soon asked to be moved inside because it was cooling off outside. We got a text message from Paul and Shirley — they are on their way home from another day of wine-tasting and would be joining us in about half an hour. We’d finished our food by the time they arrived. True to form, they brought another fine bottle of wine with them and while they ate their food we visited and drank some of their wine.

At the end of the evening (10 o’clock) we arranged to meet Paul and Shirley down at the Grotto Beach tomorrow morning at 7:30 for a brisk 12km walk along the beach BEFORE our breakfast. Whoa! That means we will NOT be sleeping in tomorrow (like we have been most of our mornings here). We may even miss our great breakfast here at our hotel. But we’ll get to experience the beach, the sand at low tide, and a great walk.