So I had successfully managed to convince the girls (my Jessica and Emily plus one Cara) to come out with me for a healthy late afternoon walk in Somerset West’s Radloff Park – the only catch being of course that they TOTALLY expected a reward for having agreed to the outing in the first place!

The walk was lots of fun (primarily because the numerous dogs being walked around Radloff at any point in time always give my girls a big entertaining fright), but with that now done and dusted it was time to pony up with a reward – so I decided to take a drive down the road to Stellenbosch for some pancakes and cotton candy at the Root44 Market.

The Stellenbosch/Somerset West area is blessed with a number of amazing family friendly market experiences, from the likes of the exceptional Lourensford Market, the Oude Libertas Slow Market, the Blaauwklippen Family Market and of course the aforementioned Root44 Market, a market that we have certainly visited more than just a few times in the past.

Situated on the Audacia Wines estate (right next to the big Mooiberge strawberry farm with all its crazy colourful scarecrows), Root44 is a sprawling market space with its ample food and craft traders operating out of big sturdy marquee tents, absolute loads of seating for visitors (both covered and uncovered), space for the kids to get rid of their energy, constant live music to entertain, seemingly endless wine and beer options, and of course the constant energy and buzz of what is basically a never ending crowd of excited patrons.

It’s an incredibly busy market with just about something for everyone and of course the incredibly stunning mountain and vineyard backdrop that is the hallmark of any Stellenbosch winelands experience.

As for our visit, I managed to successfully browse through everything without losing a single child, indulge in pancakes, samoosas, springrolls and all manner of other little spicy bites, entangle the girls in seemingly endless cotton candy (so, so sticky), and then watch them attempt to climb the nearby trees.

For the record it was a LOT of cotton candy.

Related Link: Root44 Market | Stellenbosch