South Africa | Cape Town | Tafelberg | Red Stone Hills

Getting to Cape Town

We set off early at Swellendam and some light rain reduces the chances of our desired game hike. 

A morning with ostriches speckled on the horizon. Instead of driving a short 200km into Cape Town we decided to take the longer route to Cape Agulhas

It was a long way to walk from the car to the most southern point of Africa - but we were up to the challenge.  (Paulette was scared of showing her back to the world, but now it looks like she's hiding her arse after unfortunate blurring.)

Paulette and Dane claiming an ocean each, at the most southern point in Africa.

Dane made it a bit further south with one foot in each ocean, now the most southern point in Africa.

Okay, it wasn't far at all - this is the carpark

Paulette found Cape Agulhas lighthouse, the most southern lighthouse in Africa. 

Paulette says it's windy.

Eating lunch at Caledon, Australian pie shops like saying they have the best pies in the world, this place didn't say that but had some of the nicest pies in the world. Pity we were scared our car would be broken into - so we made a hasty get away to eat our pies here at a rotunda. 

Finally made it into Cape Town. 35degrees and this is the closest thing to a beach we can find nearby - we don't join the chaos but instead go back and plan our attack on Cape Town for tomorrow.

Day 16: Tafelberg

For Reference petrol the same price as back home R8.59 a litre. 

The line length did nothing to aide Dane in persuading Paulette to walk up. Got to Table Mountain base at 8:30 and had to wait over an hour. 

But as we kept on saying, 'it could be worse'. Tourist Tip: The line seen here on the left is to buy tickets, there is another line to get onto the chair. If our concierge had been half useful they would've told us to buy tickets online, instead we got 'it may open at 8'. So get internet, buy tickets. The only saving grace is all those people also had not been told about this and we seriously considered scalping tickets at high prices to those at the back willing to pay 10x the price.

Close to the front and ready to go, the temperature had now climbed from a nice 30 to a sweltering 37 by 10am.

From the cart with 65 other people.

Giant Paulette terrorises Cape Town.

Back at the car and the temperature gauge read 49degrees. The line of cars along this road was at least 5km, through ingenuity and luck we parked 200m from the cable car base.

A view from Signal Hill - table mountain dwarfs the city from where ever you are  in Cape Town. That, and because a lot of the hills behind it are similar and flat we always thought we were looking at Table Mountain.

The other direction from Signal Hill - Cape Town's new swimming pool on the right apparently used by noone and our inverness room at the very left of picture.

Just before 12 and started down to the Cape of Good Hope. On the way we spotted one of the first beaches with about 10,000 too many people.  

Another beach found and deserted, we drop our plans to go to the cape and decide that we must get down to that beach. No one seems to be swimming. 15minutes later we made it down and found out that noone is swimming because it is about 8 degrees in the water. Dane went in completely but is out in about 30 seconds before hypothermia sets in. Paulette's toes are still frozen.

Oh no! On the way back from the Cape we hit traffic, today we end up driving 155km in 5.5hours. Giving ourselves 3hours to travel 50km was thought to be enough to make our sailboat booking, but with 30minutes left and still 30km to travel we start to lose hope. Paulette would not smile even to prove we were never worried about not making it.

V&A Waterfront @ 6:45 just in time, thankgoodness we brought the tickets with us. 

Dane Paulette Tafel

Sunset #15

Paulette & Sunset #15

Lion's Head, Signal Hill, Stadium and bay. V&A Waterfront is very busy and we struggle to get a table for dinner at 9:30pm with people still queuing for tables. This waterfront is the biggest tourist attraction in South Africa.

Day 17: Kaapstad

Cape Town

Back to the waterfront, on red open bus tourist loop which turned out to be better than expected.

17 days and we are finally proper tourists, nothing funny about being on a touring bus to take us about town.

More soccer balls line themselves all over South Africa, they must have been very proud of the world cup. More important fact came out of the touring though, a very large portion of Cape Town is built on reclaimed land. Finally explaining why there aren't many beaches. 

Cape Town is very pretty, spending money and escaping the heat by running from bar to bar. Again almost 40 degrees by 11am.

Cape Town castle. They call it a castle we think it is more of a fort. 

Guns seem to be taking aim at BMW building.

The Tafel, the Fort and the city scape. 

Outside our inverness. A lasier day today turned into seeing the whole of Cape Town which isn't that big and retiring to the inverness pool which also wasn't that big. 

Day 18: Red Stone Hills

Cape Town to Outdshorn

Stellenbosch has some really good wineries - some of the best in the world.

Another 500km today, at 85km/h - although in reality 300km of that was done in 2hours.  

Paulette took about 90 photos on the road. 

Ladismith for Lunch - here we actually visited  a delicious winery. 10 year old port for $8.

Red Stone HIlls delivered us some food for dinner, firewood and told us 'you are not allowed to do the dishes and are you okay for wine and beer?'. Red Stone Hills - tell your friends. 

Sunset #16 & Savanna Cider & Braai

So much food too much to eat.

 Red Stone Hills back to St Francis Bay

Found some Ostriches hiding in the shade early in the morning,

Big Ostrich, tempted to go for an Ostrich race but again it was warm today.

Our home beneath the red hills

A cave that was used to hold concerts till 1994, then they stopped so they could conserve something something. The cavern is cool and we decide  concerts here would be a great idea. What is there to conserve in a cave anyway? Moss?

Red Stone Hills

Black Mountain Pass mostly built in 1888

We dirtied the car quite a lot and couldn't find a carwash anywhere - people either told us they had no workers or no water.  

And time to say farewell - how sad they all look.

South Africa | New Years | Swellendam

1 January 2011
St Francis V: Gone Fishing

The Fishermen are still sleeping due to New Years Eve festivities - up late and a delicious egg and rump steak brunch.

2011 Canoeing on the canals

2011 Boating - sun came out for the first time in a few days so took the boat out for some fun.

2011 Flagging - clearly the most important job on the boat (at least according to Paulette).

2011 Skiing - How hard can it be?

2011 Answer: Some. Up, Up, Splash.

Paulette put restrictions on not letting this blog be posted until we had actually finished the day as it may restrict its factual accuracy. Proving her correct the first draft of this post said  'No Fishing Due to Bad Weather', this one says '2011 Gone Fishing'

With a few licorice too many somebody starting looking a bit pale. There were a lot of boats looking on intently as there weren't many bites as Danielle explains "At least when I spew a lot of these people and fish will be happy"

"That's Better", happy to be back on solid ground and showing much more color than the catch. The fish was more suicidal than anything else catching itself before we retired from the 2.4metre swell due to incoming thunderstorm.  

Leaving St Francis Bay for Swellendam today.

Who knows how long it took us. On the way we stopped for some elephant riding, it was great fun. Paulette bonded with her elephant greatly. Dane was trampled. Danielle kept hers while Danie rode his to the farm.

Danielle and Danie went to go bungie jump but both backed out because it was 216m and didn't want to dirty their pants.

******* This post is not factually accurate. The only thing that happened today is we woke up to a great day and am here to say this blog probably won't be updated until the 8th. Enjoy your 2011. ******

St Francis View as flat a farm's dam. 

The real day 14.

Up nice and early at St Francis Bay and off to Knysa Elephant Park.

We have seen lots of elephants, but finally we tame one.

The method of taming.

The actual method of taming was Paulette handing out buckets of love. 

What does the inside of a trunk look like?

What does the back of an elephant ear look like?

What does a self portrait of an elephant look like?

We've seen lots of elephants but we finally got one good picture. This is the only photograph we will bring back from South Africa, so good it looks fake. 

Driving - Paulette was continual complaining that the driver was ruining her view. Today we managed 497km in 6hours. 

One of many pretty beaches along the garden route - Wilderness

We stopped for a closer view. 

Mossel bay was a good stopover for lunch and we climbed amongst the 2ndish of our 8ish lighthouses.

We went past Rivendale which didn't hold true to its name sake, however Heidelburg was almost a replica. 

The roads got wet once we were nearing our destination at Bontebok National Park and what do you know, we found a bontebok.  

Sunset with Cider, Rice, Tree and Sausages. Sorry Kumi but if we had to count the number of sunsets we've had we'd be counting with our toes ... b-e-a-utiful.