Don’t say I’m not green!

There are those who come onto this blog and accuse me of hating the environment. Maybe it’s because they have misread, not read or simply misunderstood my viewpoints on whales, dolphins and natural gas extraction.

It’s not the case. I do care deeply for the environment and I do all that I (reasonably) can to protect and cherish it, including worm farming, recycling and saving electricity wherever I can. And I’m also going out of my way to champion Fairview Cheese & Wine Farm’s latest green initiative: The Goat Rapid Transit system or GRT.

With the rising price of petrol and wine farms becoming increasingly focused on reducing their carbon footprint, this initiative presents numerous benefits to wine loving visitors and the environment alike. It aims to offer a safe and sustainable alternative for visitors travelling to the farm. Fairview currently attracts close to 250 000 visitors to its Paarl cellar door each year, most of which travel to the farm by car or bus. From today visitors and staff can take a train from Cape Town to Paarl station, from where the GRT will operate at regular intervals.

Twenty-four custom-made wagons have been built by artisans from the Paarl region. “I am delighted to be involved in the revival of the art of wagon making in the area,” says Fairview owner Charles Back, “given the legacy of the art form in the region, previously known as Wamakersvallei (Wagonmakers Valley). Not only will this re-establish this historic industry, but it is also an opportunity for Fairview to utilize the unproductive goats in their 700-strong goat herd. “We will be making use of the billies and the does with smaller udders, as these are normally stronger than their high milk producing counterparts” added Back.

Ongoing training has been conducted by farm manager Donald Mouton over the past couple of months. This has ensured that the goats are fit enough to pull the wagons and have become accustomed to the traffic on the road.

Fine work by Fairview and especially by Donald, I’m sure you’ll agree.

I can only hope that they extend this service across the Paarl region – perhaps encouraging the Cape Town Lion Park and Stellenbosch’s Giraffe House to join them – a move which will not only allow visitors to reduce their carbon footprint on the wine tour, but will surely also reduce the incidence of drink-driving in the area. And, in the case of the lions, probably resuce the incidence of tourists as well.
Meanwhile, you can enjoy the animals, the amazing scenery and the wine.

The Killers tickets “sold out”

Golden Circle tickets for The Killers’ Jo’burg concert at the Coca-Cola Dome on Friday 4th December have sold out – barely two hours after officially going on sale. Recession? What recession?
However, at the time of writing, Golden Circle tickets for the Cape Town concert on the 6th at the Val de Vie Polo Estate are still available.

There are many reasons why this dichotomy exists. Perhaps the greater numbers of tickets available for a larger venue, less demand, financial concerns or – most likely –  the fact that most Capetonians haven’t actually got around to heading onto the Computicket website, because it’s Friday, dude and the weekend actually started last night.
Jo’burgers will have been up at 3 to avoid the traffic and, having arrived at work at 7, will have proceeded to buy their tickets immediately before doing that filing, writing those reports and sms’ing each other about how great it was to have a thunderstorm last night and did you see the clouds that looked like a spaceship and there was lightning and how summer is almost here with it’s lovelyrain and hail.
These things make them happy, which is not great, because everyone knows that a happy Jo’burger is annoying.

You can tickets via Computicket for both concerts. I notice that Computicket have now officially labeled the Cape Town gig as “Paarl”, which is technically more accurate. The Killers’ official website is sticking with “Cape Town”, though. Probably because Americans don’t even know where South Africa is (there’s a hint in the name, guys), let alone Paarl.

I have mine. I know others who have theirs. You’d surely be silly to miss out.