Quinoa porridge - tasty breakfast option

I love a good breakfast or brunch, and no time have I made the most of this than whilst I was on my trip to the amazing South Africa. Pretty much most hotels we stayed in laid out a breakfast feast of cold meats, cheese, pastries, juices, savoury nibbles, breads plus all the cooked breakfasts you need from a fry up to eggs Benedict.

But now I am back home, the fun has to stop. Firstly I don’t have time to knock this up in the morning and secondly, I was eating so much, by the end of the three weeks, I had actually had enough of pancakes and pastries! Shock horror.

fresh quinoa porridge

So now I am back to cooking nutritious, fuelling yet tasty breakfasts for the morning rush! One great recipe I love for breakfast, is quinoa porridge.

Fat loss pills – do they really work? My month trial...

Why take them???

Prior to my honeymoon, I did my best to tone up. Although the holiday wasn't going to involve much beach or bikini time, as this is my honeymoon obviously I wanted to look as good as possible. Whilst I had been eating healthily (ok, there has been the odd treat but life would be boring otherwise!), I was lured in to the promise of losing the stubborn fat around my middle with some fat burning tablets, called garcinia cambogia …

With adverts promising to cut the flab and transforming my 'flat pack’ into a ‘six pack’, seeing results in as little as a month, I was sold!!!! Over the past few months, I kept seeing adverts online, in magazines and even pictures on Instagram of women that have used the tablets who wowed me with their transformations.

picture from http://garciniacambogiaextract.co.nz/

What made these “diet pills” even more tempting was that there always seemed to be a free trial on these! For just a fiver you would receive your 14 day free trial of these tablets. Seeing as the RRP is over £80, I thought ‘what the heck’ and I made the order for my free trial on line. 

St Francis Bay (and Jeffrey's Bay), South Africa

Being pretty much slap bang between Plettenberg Bay and Shamwari (our game reserve destination), we stopped off at St Francis Bay for two nights. On our first night, we didn’t arrive at our B&B “Sandals” until about 6pm, so we went straight to dinner. We ate on the recommendation of the guy who checked us in, going for seafood and sushi at “Christy’s Catch” a cute, down to earth, family run restaurant, two minutes walk from the B&B.

you can see our room's balcony top left

enjoying a kaluha 'don pedro' at Christy's Catch 
(ice cream and kaluha liquor)

Our hotel had a convenient location of being round the corner to the high street and main area, but when I say high street, this isn’t a hustlin’ and bustlin’ strip but a small collection of shops and eateries.

There is actually quite a bit to do around St Francis Bay, from boating activities, hiking, deep sea fishing and quad biking etc, a bit similar to Plettenberg Bay.

One of the reasons the Boy wanted to stop here though was for the surfing. 

Plettenberg Bay, South Africa - home of Tsitsikamma forest

After driving through Oudtshoorn we decided that there was no point staying in the town for the sake of it so decided to drive straight to Plettenberg Bay (aka ‘Plett’) after we had done the whole ostrich thing in the morning. (read about that here) 

This was one of my favourite drives so far, purely because  we were driving in the clouds, something I don't recall doing before!

driving the Garden Route in the clouds!!!

Like the other places, Plettenberg bay is a small coastal town, with not that much to do in the centre. The little town reminded me a little of Byron Bay in Australia with its  relaxed  vibe and quite high street, peppered with a few people here and there enjoying an icecream or coffee.

the outskirts of Tsitsikamma 

However, you come to Plett for the scenery, nature and adrenalin filled activities. The surrounding area has so much to offer, from horse riding, sailing, tubing, sky diving, to seeing animals, hiking in the forests and camping..

Oudtshoorn, South Africa - aka ostrich country

Oudtshoorn is famous ostrich land in South Africa, so the only reason I guess why tourists stop here. We stayed at “De Opstal”, the address that was descried on our itinerary from Trailfinders as being “on road R328 towards the Cango Caves, 14km outside Oudtshoorn”, which is  about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Outdshoorn - home of these long legged ugly birds!!!

But it was a quaint lodge with private rooms and balconies overlooking the hillside, with a real homely farm house feel to it. Plus there were little glass jars of homemade cookies dotted about everywhere!    

our room 

cute country feel to the lodge

It was also conveniently located to the ostrich farms. There are loads of theses farms that are sprinkled about in the area, I don’t think you need to go to a particular one, I reckon they are all pretty much the same.

From Stellenbosch (winelands) to Montagu

The next stop of our road trip was Montagu, about a two hour drive from Stellenbosch. In all honesty, there isn’t much to do there – we chose to stop here because it was in between Oudtshoorn, and seeing as we don’t have a car back home so are not used to driving, we didn’t fancy a  5 hour drive. 

the drive  to Montagu

mountain surround the roads!

Whereas Stellenbosch was a small, quaint town, it was catered to tourists, with plenty of restaurant choices that offered good food, amazing backdrop scenery and an old town ambience. For me Montagu on the other hand was just a small town with simple architecture and amenities, nothing too special.

We stayed at the Mimosa Lodge which was perfect for or needs – a massive room with a huge comfy bed, overlooking the mountains. Oh and free dessert wine in a cute vinaigrette bottle.... As if I needed anymore wine though seeing as I had been on a wine tasting tour since 10am, plus sampled some of the local Montagu rose wines at dinner (just the two glasses though).  

our room at Mimosa Lodge 

The morning of our travels to Oudtshoorn we stopped by the Montagu hot springs (aka Avalon Springs). We were expecting little rock pools and hot  springs to be doted amongst the  greenery and hills but turn out it was more of a family day spot – a series of manmade heated outdoor pools, picnic areas and BBQ spots that were crammed to the brim with local kids. 

the rock face at Avalon Springs

more heated pool than hot springs 

I can see why it is popular with locals and families but if you only have a short amount of time on your trip, don’t feel bad about cutting out Montagu. 

X x X


read part one of Cape Town here
read part two of Cape Town hereread about our  amazing  hotel here

Revlon lacquer balm in 105 (nude): review

I have been playing it safe with the make up this holiday to South Africa as the Boy hates too bright a shade of lippy and seeing as it is our honeymoon, I guess I should try and avoid the things he hates. 

Personally i love a deep and dark lip, favouring the pillar box reds and vampy purples. One thing we do agree on in make up though is a nude lip colour and one that I have bee rocking on this trip in particular is the one from Revlon - laquer balmin 105 in "demure reservee".

staple nude colour 

The Winelands, Stellenbosch, South Africa

No trip to South Africa and Cape Town would be complete without a trip to the famous winelands –miles of glorious mountainous landscape and an obscene amount of vineyards and varieties of wine. We were  told that this is the perfect time to come as it was the ‘winelands secret season’… the summer days are just hanging on whilst we turn into Autumn, but there is a cooler taste in the air.

no trip to Cape Town is complete without a wine tour!!!

We arrived at our hotel in Stellenbosch at 9pm and normally booking on for a wine tour for the next day wouldn’t have been an issue. Except tomorrow in our case was Good Friday so no tours were operating on this bank holiday.

Cape Town part two: Table Mountains, Penguins, Seals, Kirstenbosch Gardens, Cape Point

With only 4 nights in the South African capital, it was a tough game fitting everything in. One of the trips that we decided to do combined the penguins, seals, gardens and cape point. Not normally a fan of tours, this was actually great - small group of 10 and plenty of time to see the attractions plus none of the hassle of navigating our way round!

We went with Ilios who were actually really good at this tour guiding malarkey!

Kirstenbosch gardens

Penguins, seals, Kirstenbosch Gardens and Cape Point

Penguins are one of my favourite animals (along with the slow lorris, ducks and sausage dogs FYI) so no trip to Cape Town was going to be complete without seeing the African penguins at Boulders Bay. We decided to book a tour for this, which turned out to be an all day thing and not just admiring the penguins.

What are the benefits of flaxseeds?!

About three or four years ago I was advised to start incorporating flaxseeds into my diet and ever since have sprinkled a little here and there over my foods. When I first started using flaxseeds, they weren’t really common place but now they are readily available in the high street health shops and feature more and more in recipes and baking.  I know that they are good for you and that they are full of fibre, so I have brought a little tupperware box of them to South Africa with me to sprinkle over my brekkie and salads when we are on the road.

I bought these from Holland & Barraett

But before I went away, flaxseeds had got me thinking….
what is it about the flaxseed that makes it a health food? What are the benefits? Why was I recommended to add it to my diet (my memory doesn’t stretch back that far)?

So I did a little research in my quest to know more about their health benefits…