Winter is about two things - being cosy and taking advantage of great specials.
A good place to start looking for things to do is at Cape Town Tourism's winter site (www.capetown.travel/winter) which is where I discovered Sacred Mountain Lodge bed and breakfast and its jolly fine package.
It's in Noordhoek, down a skeletal tree-lined road and opposite a paddock full of horses.
Sacred Mountain has five cottages, each sleeping up to four, and until the end of this month you can take a self-catering option for R550 a couple, including a bottle of wine, a fruit basket and a dip in the jacuzzi at the candle-lit wellness spa.
We know a bargain when we see one, so we started packing.
It's a beautiful place that lives up to its name, and seeps tranquillity through every door and window.
And you can do it with a relatively clear conscience and positive karma debt because Sacred Mountain follows stringent "green tourism" procedures and eco-friendly products, aiming to have as little impact on the area as possible.
They do this through low-energy lighting, water-saving showers, separation of waste for recycling and general design efficiency.
None of this took anything away from the comfort levels - our little house was kept warm and toasty all night long with wall panel and gas heaters, and the showers may be water-saving but they are blissfully hot and high-pressure.
Our particular cottage had its own private garden with banana strelitzia, birdhouse, and Weber braai.
If we had been self-catering, we would have found everything we needed in the open plan kitchen, but we had other ideas.
There was a large main bedroom with its own bathroom, as well as two more single beds behind a decorative screen at the end of the lounge, and a second bathroom. With DStv, it was a home from home.
The people in Noordhoek are very friendly and accommodating; we had an 8pm booking at the Food Barn, just down the road at Noordhoek Farm Village, but it was cold and we were hungry.
"Of course you can come at 7pm spend the whole night with us," said the lovely woman when we phoned.
The Food Barn does a fabulous winter bistro special, with a menu that changes frequently and reflects chef patron Franck Dangereaux's skilled hand. Three courses and a carafe of wine costs R175, and although you will be warned the portions are slightly smaller than those a la carte, it's because they want you to get through all of them.
As it happened, we didn't manage that because the kitchen sprung a surprise on us between the prawn in mussel veloute amuse bouche and our starters; we tried to send the waiter back but he returned insisting that the airy fish beignets on tom yum noodles were indeed for us to sample.
Delicious, but we ended up sacrificing dessert later.
For the bistro menu, which is available at all meal times every day, starters include a giant goat-cheese ball, crumbed and fried and served on a fig and blackcurrant sauce; and caramelised onions on puff pastry topped with cured "parma lamb" surrounded by a tapenade sauce.
For main courses, I stuck with lamb - a little rack rolled in a herby bread crust, a lentil humus spring roll and spicy cumin jus. My friend tasted truffle for the first time (and has not stopped talking about it) with her wild mushroom, herb and ricotta open ravioli. It changes lives.
We drank two carafes each of Merlot and a heavenly Graham Beck blend, and unanimously decided that as much as we wished we could, dessert was not going to happen. Bye bye chestnut crépes. Bye bye cheese platter.
Back at the lodge, we placed our breakfast orders before turning in.
We were to have an early start for a scenic tour of the Peninsula from a rather unusual perspective, after our scrumptious vegetarian omelette and French toast piled with bacon, tiny sweet tomatoes and grated cheese - the man from Cape Sidecar Adventures was coming to fetch us.
It's one thing to go haring around on the back of a superfast bike, which is a lot of adrenalin-pumping fun, but tootling around on a classic Changjiang CJ750, a version of the German 1938 BMW R71 sidecar, is entirely another.
If you're licensed you can drive yourself, after a little orientation and training, but although our pictures blatantly lie, we did not, putting ourselves into the hands of the more experienced Kevin Tucker instead.
My advice here is that, unlike us, you must be prepared. It is winter, after all, and the early mornings are cold. Tucker came prepared with extra leather jackets and very cool fighter jet helmets, but warmer jerseys, gloves and more scarves would have been welcome. If only we had thought further than packing enough wine.
Each motorcycle can accommodate three people - driver, pillion and sidecar passenger. My friend felt more comfortable in the sidecar and I was happy to ride pillion; so off we went.
After a spin in the sidecar myself, I realised I'd had the best seat in the house - not only is it raised higher than everyone else, but you are partially sheltered behind Tucker (they had thoughtfully sent their largest driver).
The scenic drive took us through Kommetjie - here I recommend a stop at Imhoff Farm and its related businesses, maybe even ride a camel, except they don't like coming out in the rain - and past Slangkop lighthouse, the tallest cast iron lighthouse in the Cape.
We headed through Misty Cliffs towards Scarborough, over Red Hill overlooking Simon's Town and back to Noordhoek through Glencairn. What a wonderful way to appreciate the rugged beauty of this part of our coastline.
Before we left, we browsed around the quaint and quirky shops in Noordhoek Farm Village and couldn't leave the Food Barn bakery and deli without a bagful of sinful pastries and hot-from-the-oven peanut butter muffins the size of a baby's head.
With good food, good wine and great company in pretty surroundings, our mini-break left us feeling relaxed and refreshed, albeit rather full.
- Sacred Mountain Lodge: www.sacredmountain.co.za or call 021 789 2713; Food Barn: www.thefoodbarn.co.za or 021 78 1390 and Cape Sidecar Adventures: www.sidecars.co.za or 021 434 9855.