Road trip & start to a new chapter

The sluice gates are open

Orange River	& Gariep Dam

My Dad and I travelled by road from Johannesburg to the Cape leaving at 2am and arrived in Paarl at 5.30pm and collected keys to my uncles house to spend the next couple of nights before moving into my new apartment.

We heard on the news about the fires all over Capetown and some roads being closed.

From the Internet

In the meantime waters were overflowing and sluice gates open at the Orange River and Gariep Dam.

Our entrance to Paarl was however peaceful and very beautiful.

This was the Paarl Valley from the highway road on top of the mountain looking down into the Paarl valley with the winelands

We offloaded our luggage and then went exploring to buy some food.

I was very impressed with the Food Lovers Market - much nicer than the one in Johannesburg.

Food Lovers Market, with a Seattle Coffee shop

Well stocked shelves	open &	Spacious
	!

Very impressive and spotlessly clean. An absolute pleasurable shopping experience.

Paarl is a city with 294,457 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is the largest city in the Cape Winelands. Due to the growth of the Mbekweni township, it is now a de facto urban unit with Wellington.
It's renowned for its viticulture and fruit growing heritage, and is home to the second oldest wine route in the country. Paarl is the birthplace of the world's youngest language, Afrikaans. Wikipedia

Looks like I'm going to have to brush up on my Afrikaans. So far the people are very warm and friendly and I'm looking forward to this next chapter in my life.

Tomorrow we will explore the mall and some other shopping places, gymnasiums etc. I'll be sure to blog some more places of interest.

I'm looking forward to discovering more about Paarl.