We had been told we could spend the whole day at Babylonstoren, a winery / farm on steroids, but we didn’t quite believe it. We were wrong. We left the house this morning at 10AM and got home at 10PM – by all accounts a whole day!

We arrived and bought our tickets to Soetmelksvlei, a renovated working farm that shows how things would have worked 100 years ago. A safari vehicle picked us up from the reception and drove us about 20 minutes into the property to the old farm. We drove past orange groves, avocado trees, olive trees, almond trees, cow pastures, vineyards upon vineyards, and more.

First, I can’t believe an individual person owns this much land. Second, I can’t believe how much stuff grows here. And third, I can’t believe how idyllic it is.

We were shown a quick video about the farm and the restoration. Everything here was done beautifully. Nick and I kept remarking on how well it was done, with no detail left behind. There has been some serious money pumped into this.

Each of the buildings (we have noticed the South Africans say “bulding”) had a different purpose, and they were all open for exploring.

There was a workshop where a blacksmith made Millie a fresh nail to take home. A leather worker showed us how to make bags. A woodworker was restoring and old wagon.

The big central farmhouse had original furniture and a working kitchen. We sat and had tea and coffee, with bread from the mill, butter from the cows, and jam from the fruit trees.

We saw cows being milked, and learned how to separate milk from cream. We got to taste both, fresh.

There was a mill powered by the stream on the property, and a library.

There was a huge indoor play house. We ran into the family we met at the brewery a couple of days ago and Millie and Ari played together for a while.

At the cafe we had orange cake with fresh cream and a milk tart. The cow we had just seen get milked walked past as we were enjoying her goods.

There was even a playground.

Heaven. On. Earth. Unlike the botanical garden yesterday, Millie didn’t once say this was boring. We were the last family on the final shuttle back at 4pm.

Nick had thought to make a dinner reservation in their earliest slot (6pm) so we had 2 hours to kill. The time went quickly as we explored.

We went into their “history of wine” museum. Millie especially loved the smelling part.

We walked around their extensive gift shop. I told Nick that I understand Millie’s intense jealousy at seeing other kids with ice creams when she can’t have one. I was so jealous of people who live here on giant farmhouses, with curated antiques, living off the land.

We walked through the gardens, and picked a fresh orange off a tree to share.

Then, it was time for dinner. Unbeknownst to us, Wednesday night is “carnivore night” and was a whooooole production. It was a fixed menu and we were at communal tables. They kept bringing us food until I thought I was going to die, and then they brought dessert. There was live music. There was dancing. It was a lot.

Considering it was a 3 hour sit down meal after a long day, Millie did mostly great. She only had to be escorted out once (by dad) for being too loud. She ate every carrot from the above pot over the course of the meal.

The guy at the end of our table looked so much like Trevor Noah that I had to text Nick under the table “is that Trevor Noah” and his reply was “insane, idk” I think the final answer is no, but it took almost the whole meal to figure it out.

At times the music got too loud for Millie so we went outside and danced. She loves anything fancy, especially fake ballroom dancing.

We sat next to a nice couple from the Philippines who confirmed it is the place to go for Christmas.

Millie predictably fell asleep within 5 minutes of getting in the car. We did the car-to-bed transfer. It was a good day!