In my previous post I mentioned that Kerry-Anne and I went on a little holiday to the Spier wine estate (a mere 35km from our home). The photo that you see in today's post is that of an artwork in the hotel bar. If you look closely you'll notice that the entire work has been created using old aluminium cans.

My extremely condensed review of the two days is that the accommodation was great, the grounds are lush and green, the swimming pools were beautifully warm (around 28°C) and the buffet breakfast was outstanding. The evening dinner at the restaurant left plenty to be desired though. We found the service (then and during the day at the bar) to be extremely slow, and the rolled lamb (with rosemary and stuffed with feta cheese) to be pretty dry with little flavour - almost as though it had been kept warm in the oven for a few hours.

Spier lays a heavy emphasis on environmental sustainability - and whether or not this is just for marketing purposes, or if it's out of a genuine concern for the environment, I'm not sure, but it seems that at every turn one's confronted with notices informing where recycled paper has been used, or that the grounds are watered with recycled water, or that lights that are not in use should be switched off. We even found the water pressure in our room to be extremely low - presumably to reduce the amount of water used.