Africa Day 4 Exploring The Peninsula from Cape Town to Cape Point 9th July 2018

Wow, an amazing, jam packed day and I slept much better last night. ?

Stephen picked us up at 8.30am for a full day exploring to Cape Point.   First stop Kirstenbosch  botanical Garden.  Our guide Andrew spent the most wonderful hour and a half with us showing us around the Garden.   It was my favorite part of the day, I was in my happy place.

In 1895 Cecil Rhodes bought the land and planted a lot of trees, when he died in 1902 Rhodes bequeathed the land to the people of  South Africa.  Now it is filled with indigenous flora of Southern Africa.  It is internationally acclaimed as one of the great botanic gardens of the world.  1 million people visit every year.  The garden is stunning, we saw so many plants we have never seen before.  Table Mountain was the backdrop and lifted the views to another level.   Our guide Andrew was hilarious, he had great banter with us.   I knew nothing of this garden before going today, so glad we went.   I thought of you mum when we were wondering around, and at the end I hugged Stephen, I get that from you too ?

Next stop was Simons town, to see the African penguin.  It used to be called the jackass penguin because of the noise it makes. When we booked this holiday I had no idea we would be seeing penguins, I was delighted when I found out a few months ago.  There are 17 species of penguins in the world, think we are up to number 7 now.  Don’t think we will make 17, but will be fun trying.  They are all found at the southern tip of the southern continents and Antartica.  We spent about half an hour down at the beach observing the couple of hundred penguins there, they are fun to watch.  Took a few photos for you Darren ?

Simons town was a lovely, little seaside village, reminded me of England, there were lots of heritage buildings, I can see why lots of people have retired there.

Next we headed to Cape Point, used to be called Cape Of Good Hope, it is the most southerly western point of Africa.   The views were rugged and beautiful.   We were blessed with another beautiful day. That is 3 days in a row now that there has not been one cloud in the sky.  That is unheard of at home.  I can imagine it could be very blustery down there but not today.

At Cape Point,  there were signs along road warning you about Baboons but we didn’t see any. But we did see Ostrich at the beach, Seals, Eland (which grow up to 950kg, farmed for venison game meat.  They can clear a two metre fence from standing) Seals, Cape Cormorants, Sacred ibis and Hadeda ibis.

After soaking up the views we ate a delicious local seafood meal, we both tried the Kingklip fish, was delicious.

On the way back to Cape Town we headed up the west side of the peninsula, driving along the beach.   It is a beautiful stretch of road in the vain of the Great Ocean Road.

We got back to the Hotel about 4.30pm had a cuppa and put our feet up for a while.  So much to see here and all of it within an hour of Cape Town.

At 6.15pm Peter drove us to Biesmiellah in the hotel car.  This is the restaurant our guide suggested to us when we asked about local food.  It was basic, but clean. The staff were friendly and the food was full of flavour.   Reminded us of Jerusalem’s at home.  We had a mixed plate of starters to share, then Denning Vlies (lamb chops in a rich sauce) and Bobotie which is mince & egg and rice. The relishes that accompanied the dishes were full of flavour.  By the time we finished our driver,Peter, wasn’t back to pick us up for another 15 mins, so we shared koeksisters, a donut in coconut and syrup for dessert which was delicious.  It was a most enjoyable meal, we love eating the local food when we visit other countries.  By this time Peter had arrived, so we payed the bill ($35.00) and headed back to the hotel.   Greg had a quick port in the library, then we headed up to our room.

Tomorrow we explore some more and do a bit of wine tasting, well someone’s got to do it!