Our Travel Blog

The weather seems to be slowly declining, dull and overcast this morning with the threat of rain. Cape Town is in desperate need of rain, the reservoirs are only at 25% of their normal level and getting lower. Water rationing is in force and shower times restricted to 1 (one) minute!

After breakfast we headed south towards the naval base of Simon’s Town which served as our marker for penguin country which is just south of there.

This area is home to the African Penguin, whose numbers have been decreasing rapidly over the last 100 years due mainly to pollution destroying their food chain.

I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking.

Below are a couple of pictures of Mum and two chicks.

The guy above is in the process of molting, this happens once a year and replaces all of the old feathers for new ones with better insulation. During this period, which lasts 21 days the penguins can’t enter the water so they go on an eating binge beforehand to store up their energy.

While wandering around the area we came across a colony of Rock Dassies and their young. Believe it or not these guys are related to the elephant family.

Youngsters

Mum feeding Babies.

After a coffee stop (again without Carrot Cake!), we headed back around the coast to Stellenbosch.

As we approached Stellenbosch we entered a huge area if vineyards, this is prime African wine country.

Stellenbosch is an old Dutch settlement where their architecture can still be seen.

It’s hard to explain, but the face in the picture above looked like a piece if rusted iron sculpture superimposed on a map of Africa. I couldn’t work out what it was meant to represent. As soon as I saw it through the viewfinder the face jumped out as clear as anything. Weird, but effective!

Lunch Spot

Although we had a couple of sprinkles of rain it was not enough to affect us, and certainly not enough to help with the drought.

Tomorrow our flight leaves at 21:20, so we are able to leave our bags at the hotel and we’ll get a taxi to the waterfront and catch the ferry across to Robbens Island. Depending on what time we get to the airport, and the state of their WiFi there may or may not be a blog tomorrow. I don’t intend to do a blog when we are in England as there will be nothing “touristy” going on. I will do a final entry in the next few days covering Robbens Island and maybe even a survey!

After breakfast we headed off to find the most Southern point in Africa. Many people think this is at the Cape of Good Hope, but it is actually further east along the coast at Cape Agulhas.

As it was a reasonably long journey we headed out of town on the highway with the intent on returning via the back roads if time permitted. We drove through a mountain pass about 1000ft above sea level into a fertile valley area where the was plenty of wheat, apples and grapes growing.

This fertile area carried on for a long time, we then left the freeway and headed south down to Cape Agulhas. We again stopped for coffee, but NO cake this time! We stopped a few times on the way for geocaches as I needed 5 more to reach 500. I managed to work it out so that the 500th find would be at the southernmost point of the continent.

Once we reached Cape Agulhas it was a bit of a mess as they are building a new road and building at the site. The road is being built of interlock paving, there were about six guys laying a gazillion interlock stones by hand, not a machine in sight!

When it came to finding the magic cache we thought a disaster had befallen us, we couldn’t find the cache! Luckily there was a log entry on the site that suggested if we looked from a slightly different direction then all would be revealed….. it was!

We planned a rout back across country via Hermanus which is a good whale watching area, on the way we passed the elusive ostrich.

The coastline at Hermanus:

This is the closest we got to seeing a whale:

You’ll have to read further to see what we didn’t expect to see!

Different place for breakfast this morning, at 2300 last night this place was heaving with students from the nearby Uni, this morning there was only us there!

Today’s plan was to drive up the coast north of the city to visit a few beaches and coves. In my mind I had built this trip up to be a coastal drive between small fishing villages; I was wrong on a couple of things, the coastal road had an inability to get near to the coast, and the small coves and fishing villages were obviously a figment of my imagination. Nevertheless, we did pass a nuclear power station.

The first few miles of the drive was spent in fog and low cloud, table mountain often disappeared  from sight.

We stopped at a small cafe for coffee and a piece of cake to sustain us, well the carrot cake was probably big enough to feed half of the town, needless to say there would be no lunch today! The cafe was quite funky with a lot of artsy stuff around as well as numerous birds.

After our somewhat oversized snack we diverted off the “coastal” road a few times to get down to the sea. Our first stop was Yzerfontein.

It looked as though they were preparing for some boat racing. The boats were inflatables like a Zodiac, but with a catamaran type hull and large engine. The could certainly move.

A cottage along the sea front

After leaving Yzerfontein we came across a sight we weren’t expecting.

These camels were just grazing at the side of the road. It appears they were introduced from N.Africa many decades ago and continue to live in the Cape area.

Next stop was Langebaan, a breezy seaside town with plenty of large rollers coming off the Atlantic (which by the way was no warmer today than yesterday) . Kite flying, kite surfing and paddle board surfing seemed to be the sport of the day.

We made a few stops for geocaches finding 4; this brought Lyn’s total up to 400 found — well done!

On the way home we spotted these two guys in a field, as usual we are looking to identify them.

Tomorrow we head off to the southernmost point of S. Africa.

Today was just one of those days! It started off OK with breakfast, the hotel has an odd way of doing breakfast; they have teamed up with three local restaurants and they give you a 100 Rand ($9 Cdn ~$7 US) voucher per person, believe me that is plenty for a full breakfast and coffee over here!

After a good breakfast we headed off to Table Mountain as their web site said the weather and visibility was good, and the line up was only 5 minutes. Well 2 out of three was not good enough, when we got there 30 minutes later the line up for the cable car was in excess of 2 hours (I suspect the web site still  said 5 minutes). We thought about waiting, but the temperature was climbing, the line was lengthening and as we had done the trip before we decided not to wait. Not a bitter disappointment, but it would have been nice to go again.

View of Table mountain and Cape Town from the base of the cable car:

Upper Cable Car Station

Cape Town

We headed off in the car to go to Lionshead, this is a mountain close by Table Mountain that climbs too 2195 ft, Table Mountain climbs to 3563 ft.

Lionshead

Moslim Mausoleum on Lionshead

From here we headed off to some beaches on the Atlantic coast, the plan being to see Clifton Beach, Llandudno Beach and Camps Bay. Well, it’s not the weekend, it’s not even summer but the places were mobbed, it was impossible to park anywhere with in walking distance at Clifton and Llandudno beaches so we had to make do with long distance views instead.

Clifton Beach

We headed back to Camps Bay hoping to get parked there, which we did.

Below is a view along the way.

And some views of Camps Bay

Looking Back at the top Station on Table Mountain

We spent some time on the rocks watching the surfers. We paddled in the Atlantic but it was FREEZING!!!

We headed back to the hotel via a Quilt / Hobby store, but true to form for the day, after spending 45 minutes in traffic jams we finally got to the store only to find it was in the process of being demolished!! Back to the hotel we went.

At the hotel we found a very apologetic note from management advising us that the the city was shutting off the water from 20:00 tonight until 10:00 tomorrow, there could be some very smelly people in Cape Town tomorrow morning.

The final bummer for the day came in the form of a text message from Avis saying that 3 days after I returned the car they found a problem with one of the tyres, and that they would bill me accordingly!!! I think not, there will be a battle over this.

On the plus side we got a few geocaches, Lyn has now found 399. We also had a great dinner just down the road from the hotel, maybe things will improve tomorrow?

Almost forgot, today’s Mystery Flower, any takers?

At least the title fits in with the last two, I’ll have to get creative again tomorrow.

We left Robert and Molly and their fantastic hospitality this morning and headed out to the airport for our flight to Cape Town, as this was part of the main ticket we just happened to be sitting up the sharp end again!

The flight was only about 2 hours but they managed a drinks service and a hot meal service with time to spare, can’t see Air Canada matching that.

We landed in Cape Town and Lyn’s bag was #7 off the belt, her priority sticker worked, mine didn’t…. 15 worrying minutes later my case finally made an appearance.

Next stop was the car rental, initially we weren’t going to bother with a car but the hotel shuttle for both of us to and from the hotel was the same price as renting a car for the duration, no contest really, especially as there is a free parking under the hotel. As it turns out our car was brand new with only 48Kms on the clock.

Once we had settled in and the temperature had dropped a bit we went out for a walk to scout the local area for restaurants and of course a geocache!

We have booked a trip to Robbens Island for the next Tuesday. If the haze clears we may go up Table Mountain again, but if the visibility remains poor we may not bother as we have done it before in good weather.

At the moment Cape Town is in the midst of a very severe drought, the worst in over 100 years so there are many restrictions in place.

At least the title fits in with the previous one!

The last couple of days have been spent hanging around with Robert and Molly, doing some geocaching and getting in some walking exercise.

This morning at 0800 we headed out in the cooler air for a walk and a bit more geocaching. Daytime temperatures are around 30-35C, dropping to around 12C overnight.

One of the caches we found was outside a school, not any old school but the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. It’s easier to look up the details rather than me transcribe them here. Oprah 1 or Oprah 2

Tomorrow morning we head off to Jo’Burg for the 2 hour flight to Capetown after a great stay with Robert and Molly!

Today we packed up and headed back to Jo’Burg, an 8 hour drive of about 650Kms.

Where we Stayed – Kingfisher Lodge

The roads were mostly 2 lane with many hills and slow trucks, so our average speed was not too great. No more “Big 5” to spot on the way just cats, dogs, sheep, goats, cows a lone ostrich and a small herd of zebra.

The Closest we got to Seeing a Leopard!

We did manage to see a new country, Swaziland, as the road literally ran along the border for a few Kms.

We also saw half a dozen or so railway engines being delivered by road.

This is the end of touring at this side of the country, the next couple of days will be spent with Robert and Mollie before we fly off to Cape Town on Thursday. I probably will not do another entry until we get to Cape Town.

OK, as usual I am running out of titles but there is some relevance and it’s not the baked beans!

We woke up naturally a little earlier this morning; early nights and the fact that finally my cough/cold has pretty well cleared up, played apart in this rare event.

After breakfast we headed out to the other end of town to go horse back riding! It’s been about 25 years since we last rode a horse. We spent an hour wandering around the fringes of the reserve in a group of 6 plus 2 guides. At one stage one of the guides asked if any one would like to increase their speed from a walk. It seems I was the only one who may have mumbled yes. Anyway the two of us headed out on a second trail for a while. Suffice it to say after that, there will definitely be no more children in our future.

We returned to the B&B to recover, and to have a swim in the pool. Around lunch time we headed out with a picnic lunch (I have grown quite partial to Spars chicken curry pies!) to drive up the western estuary, yesterday we did the east side.

Our greatest new animal of the day was the dung beetle. As their name suggests they work with dung, this particular species rolls the dung into a ball, which can be up to 50 times their own body weight. This ball then serves as a store of food and somewhere to incubate their eggs. This beetle flies and reminds of a small hand held drone in size, sound and the way it manoeuvers!

Further along the estuary we saw the “normal” crop of animals.

Tried to identify this guy but couldn’t, anyone recognise it?

There was also a small aerial board walk we could go along, ingenious how they routed it through a tree.

This is probably our last viewing of the large animals as we head back to Jo’burg tomorrow morning.

We arrived at our new accommodation mid afternoon and after laughing at the “Beware of Hippos” signs (see yesterdays P.S.) we checked in.

Unfortunately there was a problem with the water, there actually was plenty of water just a failing pump, so none was getting to the cottage. Anyway the problem was handled  well, we were given plenty of drinking water and a large bucket of water for flushing!! Problem was resolved the next morning after the plumber returned from his fishing trip!

The other beastie that I could not remember last night when I was talking about swimming in the ocean here was shark!!

Today we had a leisurely breakfast and went into town to pick up some lunch for our trip north to Cape Vidal. This is a trip through the St. Lucia wetlands to a beach about 35kms away. The road was tarmac, but we chose to take the many loops that were unpaved. We saw Zebra, Warthogs, Waterbuk Hippo, Rhino, Wildebeest and various, yet to be identified, members of the antelope family.

Kudus

Warthog

Waterbuk

One of the stops we made was at Mission Rocks to watch the rollers break ashore.

Up at Cape Vidal was another superb beach where we decided to go swimming. Swimming is probably not the best term, it was more a battle to stay upright against the waves while retaining your swimsuit at the same time!!

No, not that one the other one.

Our last morning at the game park, It has been a great 3 days here, the only one of the Big 5 we didn’t see was the leopard.

Last night we Saw a couple of large snails close to the cottage, Lyn’s hand is there for size comparison

After packing we took a final drive through part of the park and then linked over to another part of the park we hadn’t visited before. Unfortunately it was hot already at 30C and most of the animals had wisely sought the shade. We did see a few impala and zebra though.

Rondavaal Accommodation in Park

There has been a severe drought in the area for the last decade or so, the river below has very little water in it today. Fifteen years ago they used to offer boat tours here!

Next we headed out to St. Lucia, a coastal town on the Indian Ocean north of Durban. The estuary is home yo many hippos.

Our plans began to unravel here as we had planned to go on a whale watching boat trip as St Lucia is on the whales’ migration route. Unfortunately due to poor planning on my part, there are no tours available until Tuesday…… we have to leave on Monday. We are consoling ourselves with the fact that this is right at the end of the migration period, so there may not have been any whales to see!

There are some nice beaches here with large waves, if the waves don’t deter you from swimming then the signs that say Beware Hippos, Beware Crocodiles, Beware Something else nasty (memory failure, should have taken a picture) and Beware strong undertow should!

PS…. Only in Africa

Driving home from the restaurant and saw a dark shape in my peripheral vision, turned out to be a hippo running down the side of the road about 10ft from the car!!