Monday, January 18th - Cape Town, South Africa

We left the apartment just before 8 a.m.   That meant it was an early morning again as we were up and packed and had breakfast and took everything with us when we went down at 8:00.   Glendon, our driver from the airport, met us downstairs.  We loaded everything into the vehicle and he drove us to our next hotel (where our next tour starts) so we could check in and drop off our bags before heading out on our full-day tour of Table Mountain National Park.

Although Glendon wanted to take us there, we skipped some of the beaches like Haut Bay along the coast because we had already been past them on our bus rides.  Instead we went straight to Cape Point.  The views along the way were absolutely beautiful with so many lovely sandy beaches and secluded bays as well as rugged coastline and rising hills on the inland side.  It was another lovely day and all very beautiful and colourful.  We even saw some baboons, both big and little, on the last part of the journey inside Table Mountain National Park and close to the cape itself.  Unfortunately we didn't see any of the other animals that also live in the park.  The park was formed in 1938 and now includes 7,750 hectares of land all along the coast and peninsula.

At Cape Point there is a funicular that takes you up from the parking lot to the next level.  Then you have to climb stairs to reach the old 1910 lighthouse, which seems very small but sits on top of a hill so it would be well seen by passing ships.  There is a lookout with incredible views and then a walking path winds around the hill and out to end of the point.   There are actually three points at the southern end:  Cape of Good Hope, Cape Maclear and Cape Point.  We walked to Cape Point and we could look back on Cape Maclear toward the Cape of Good Hope.   Of course, as my sister points out, the latter was first called the Cape of Storms by Bartolomeu Dias in 1488 but King John II of Portugal renamed it the Cape of Good Hope so it sounded more optimistic as a new sea route to the East.

The water looked a long way down and it was straight down in most places.  The sheer rock walls dropped into incredibly clear blue water.  There were some small sandy beaches around but you would never climb down to them.  And the water is rough enough you probably wouldn't boat to them and risk getting that close to the rock face.  I wonder if the beaches are there all the time or if they are sometimes bigger depending on the tides.  Of course the water is so cold and the wind is pretty strong so not likely anyone ever sits on these beaches.  The stonework on the walkways was beautiful and fit perfectly with the landscape around it.  The green and brown land and the grey rock face combined with the clear blue waters and the beautiful blue sky and white clouds made for incredible pictures - way too many pictures.  

On the way down I once again took the funicular but Fran and Randy took the stairs.  Once down at the parking lot, Randy decided to walk to the next beach while Fran and I rode in the car.  Randy said it was quite a walk up and down but it didn't take him very long so we didn't have to wait very long for him.   While waiting we enjoyed the beach area which was very rocky, not sandy like the beaches closer to Cape Town, and had lots of boulders out in the sea with waves crashing over them.  The view looking back at the Cape of Good Hope was impressive but it looked more like a pile of loose rock than an actual piece of land.  It is a very rocky outcropping and I guess over time parts of it have been broken and eroded away causing the effect.  It is definitely not as high and impressive as Cape Point with its towering 200 metre cliffs and straight drops to the sea - but then I only saw that one from above and this one from below so maybe it was just my viewpoint that made the difference.

Two interesting things to note here, or at least two things I learned and found interesting.  Although I believed it to be true, neither Cape Point or the Cape of Good Hope are the most southerly points of Africa and they are not where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic Ocean.  That honour goes to Cape Agulhas about 150 km to the east.  It is apparently just a rather level coastline and not all that impressive and that's why the other capes probably get more credit than they should.  Who knew?  The other interesting thing is that the Cape of Good Hope is only 34 degrees south of the equator.  I thought it was way farther south than that and probably at an equivalent latitude to Cape Horn in South America which is 56 degrees south.  Pelee Island, Ontario is 42 degrees latitude north so not much further north of the equator than the Cape of Good Hope is south of the equator.  Who would have thunk it?

When we left the cape area we drove north on the other side of the peninsula to Simon's Town.  There we had lunch at the Seaforth Hotel with a very nice view of the ocean.  There was a nice beach there with some rocks around but lots of sandy areas.  Randy and Fran spent some time wading in the water but soon we were off on a short walk to see the African Penguins.  The Boulders Penguin Colony is right on the shore with a sandy and rocky beach.  There is a boardwalk at Foxy Beach for the tourists to wander around on and observe the penguins who live right in a residential area.  It seemed strange to be walking down a residential street and then just turning off the road on to a boardwalk to see the Penguins but there they were right below you on the beach and there were a lot of them.  

This protected penguin colony started with two pairs in 1982 and now has over 2,200 penguins.  It supposedly wasn't yet breeding season but there were a lot of penguins stay in close to their nests and we saw some eggs and even some chicks.  And the adults were very amorous standing side by side and rubbing their necks together.  Some were in the water but most were just standing around while we were there.  Some were moulting and looked rather scruffy but most were a beautiful shiny black and white and looked very healthy.  The moulting always seems like a real struggle to me.  Not only do they look scruffy but they cannot swim and that means they cannot eat and it takes weeks to complete the moulting.  I think it's a good thing I'm not a penguin because I'd never survive for three weeks without any food, even if I did stock up well in the previous month, which they apparently do.

We stayed on the boardwalk for quite a while as we were having so much fun watching them and they were so close.  The nests were just shallow indentations in the sand - obviously higher than where high tide might reach, and they were very close together with only a foot or so between nests.  The adults sitting on the nests were very conscientious about their duties and I'm sure the eggs were kept very warm.  Both parents take turns on the nest and penguins are monogamous and mate for life.  The fuzzy little chicks stayed right close to the parent's side and often huddled right under their arm or flipper or whatever you call it.  I didn't notice any "baby blues" or young adolescents who are a bluish grey in colour.  Everyone, except the chicks, seemed pretty black and white to me.  They did make a fair amount of noise and we found out after that they were once called jackass penguins because they sound like a donkey braying.  They are an endangered species but if this beach is any indication of their success, they should come off the endangered list soon.  They were definitely beautiful and fun to watch so we probably stayed a bit longer than our driver expected and I definitely took way too many pictures yet again.

We drove straight back to Cape Town and checked into our new hotel about 5 p.m.   There was some confusion with the rooms and for some reason they still think Gillian is coming even though she cancelled some time ago.  My room and Randy's was a double instead of a twin.  Fran, who was to be with Gillian, had bunk beds in her room so Randy moved to that room.  It's amazing how we just shove that boy around and this was his holiday originally.  We are the ones tagging along!  

We had our group meeting with the new tour group at 6:00 out on the back patio.  Our guide, Ardis or Hardis, seems really nice and the group seems pretty diverse.  There are 18 of us counting the guide: 5 couples and 8 singles; 3 from Germany, 2 from England, 2 from Scotland, 1 from Switzerland, 1 from South Africa and 9 from Canada; 9 males and 9 females so a pretty interesting group.  Once again a lot of Canadians and no Americans, which we have commented on several times over the past year as being quite different than in earlier years where most tour members were Americans.

I don't remember where we went for dinner but I think most of us just grabbed something in the restaurant at the hotel (or hostel in some ways!), which consisted of picnic tables outside on the patio the so we could see everything happening on the street.  It is a great spot but it does take quite a while to get your food if they are busy.  We had most of our breakfasts here too.  Some of the people on the tour flew in just today so they are on totally different times and went to bed very early.  We were lucky as we were already used to the time zone so we got to stay up a bit later and do some visiting.