Chilling in Cape Town

After finishing our coast path adventure we had two days of hard graft on the van before heading up to West Sussex for my cousin Kathleen’s wedding.

Kathleen wed her Ollie in the beautiful autumnal grounds of Glydbourne opera house, it was an amazing wedding that the whole family had been looking forward to for the whole 5 years of their engagement.

I always forget how small the Keatley’s are until I see our family next to other normal sized people, we really do come from munchkin land.

After a quick stop off to see Olly’s sister we headed to the airport. 

We had accidentally ended up with KLM flights which turned out well for us as the the food was very good and we even had mid flight ice-cream! 

On landing in Cape Town we went to pick up our surprisingly cheap hire car and were slightly worried when we found out it had only done 44km and did not have a single scratch on it. Lucky we have purchased extra excess insurance. The car is superbly simplistic and does not even have central locking, but importantly it does have air-con and reasonable ground clearance.

We have had some down time so far which was definitely needed. But have managed to explore the harbour front, walked around the botanical gardens, eaten some tasty food, met up with some of Olly’s friends and have spent some time on the stunning Blouberg beach.

It may have been a mistake to have read the FCO advice for South Africa as I didn’t have any worries before, but it is a vast contrast to rural Devon where people don’t even lock their doors. Here doors are always looked and have a second “cage” door, as do the windows. Every house also has a sophisticated alarm system. 

We have already spotted quite a lot of wildlife; sunbirds in the botanical gardens, some girthy tadpoles, lots of pretty butterflies some very large interesting bugs (indoors) and today even a snake trying to cross the motorway. 

Swimming with Seals

Today we’d booked to go on a snorkelling tour where we could swim with some local Cape Fur Seals. There’s a colony of a few thousand seals living on Duiker Island, just around the peninsula from Hout Bay.

We had our brief instruction, and were kitted up with thick 5mm wet suits, neoprene boots and fins; and then a short ride in a “bakkie” (South African slang for pick-up truck) to the harbour where we boarded the rib.

A short and quick ride round the peninsula and you could smell the seals before you could see them. It was not a pleasant smell! We stopped in a more sheltered area, and could see the seals face down with their flippers in the air, presumably watching for their prey. It was quite easy to confuse them strands of the large kelp which was also abundant here. Our guide also told us there was an elephant seal visiting (intruding on?) the colony, who had apparently been seen drowning some of the much smaller fur seals.

We jumped in the water, which was not warm, and swum to the seals. They weren’t tame, but neither were they startled by our appearance. If you got too close they’d swim off, sometimes with a couple of twists and turns – showing off. The sea was littered with the shells of prawns, masking the visibility of the water. The seals had obviously been having quite a feast. We also came across a dead seal, floating the water, with it’s head missing! We left that well alone.

After about an hour in the water, it was time to head back. After de-kitting and a quick shower we went and got a bite to eat at the Chapman’s Peak Hotel, famous for it’s calamari.

Table Mountain

After admiring Table Mountain from a number of different perspectives throughout the week; today we climbed it. 

Instead of taking the “tourist route” we followed the pipeline track then headed up the steep Woody Ravine route. This was indeed both steep and woody but luckily wasn’t too long. In 2 hours we were on the plateau but this is probably only about half way to the top (cable car station). 

We plodded along the well made track up and down a few steep sections where there are even a couple of fixed metal ladders to climb. We soon could see the cable car station in the distance surrounded by hoards of people. Even though the top was busy there are splendid views over the city and Olly could point out all the places and beaches we have visited this week. Its such a small flat city that Olly could even point out the tower block he used to live at the top of. After admiring the view we purchased one way “hiker” tickets for the cable car down. 

They fit a surprising amount of tourists in each car and the floor of the car rotates during the trip down so you get a 360 degree view. Lucky for me a very tall man next to the window let me swap spaces with him. The floor spinning was quite unnerving as you can’t hold onto the window bars. The door blew open an inch in the wind which was doubly unnerving. 

Safely back on the ground we returned to the car and headed back to do some packing before dinner.  We decided to go to an Italian place that we had walked past earlier in the week which seemed busy. However we ended up being the only customers, they also didn’t have menus but the waitress carried in the poster sized menu boards from outside for us to choose from...

Cape Town would not exist without Table Mountain. The original Khoi name for Cape Town was “Camissa” meaning “Place of Sweet Waters”. The mountain provides a rain shadow, this means the slopes are covered with vegetation, in turn producing fertile soils which attracted human settlers. 

Table Mountain consists of mudstone with a sand stone top layer, this was originally at sea level and the flat table top was produced by moving ice sheets. The whole mountain was later uplifted during a period of tectonic activity. The mountain contains a large aquifer which is replenished by rainfall, but also by moisture precipitated from the clouds which often cover the mountain, locally referred to as the “table cloth”.

Penguins

Today we left Cape Town early in the morning and went to visit the African penguin colony at Boulders Beach. We stopped on the way for breakfast in Kalk Bay which was large but a little disappointing.

We arrived, paid our fees, and walked round to see the penguins. Most of the penguins were moulting, with puffed up feathers, making them look rather chubby. While they moult they stay on land and don’t feed for 21 days. So I suspect they were rather hungry!

Afterwards we visited Boulders Beach and sat in the shade of this picturesque beach, with its golden sand, azure blue waters, and smooth granite boulders.

For here left to visit Cape Point, along with everyone else! We had to queue for about an hour, but made it inside the National Park eventually.

We walked up to the oldest lighthouse, and then along a path to the end of the Point, overlooking the newest lighthouse. In 1919 a second lighthouse was commissioned as the first didn’t serve its purpose too well, being much higher up it was frequently shrouded in fog. The replacement is much lower, and also brighter – it’s 10 million lumen light can reach 63km out to see. 

Now we’ve left Cape Town, we headed along the Atlantic Road to Stellenbosch, where we’re staying in a hostel for a couple of nights. 

Wine Tasting in Stellenbosch

After a surprise free breakfast at the hostel we mooched around before leaving for our wine tasting tour.

We had booked this through the hostel to get a discount and I mainly chose hostel/tour combo because of the logo.

After some miscommunication with whether we had to pay before leaving we finally left for the first of three vineyards.

Unfortunately after rocking up to the first stop in our very conspicuous tuktuk (with top speed about 20km/h) we discovered it was closed on Mondays.

Our driver explained this had never happened before and we headed onto the second stop.

The tuktuk was very quaint but had little suspension. We entered the security gate and passed by fields of grapes and over a number of harsh speed bumps until we reached a thatched long house.

We chose to sit outside and enjoy the nice garden. It wasn't quite as peaceful as we had hoped as there were building works going on in a nearby building but this didn't ruin the atmosphere.

We were given a price list and the tasting staff from the vineyard gave us an explanation and taster of 7 different wines including 3 white, 2 red, 1 rosé and a dessert wine. I begrudgingly used the spittoon after the first three for fear of being legless in the first hour. Olly however powered through.

I don't think the tasting guy had been using the spittoon as his speech was overcome by the giggles on a couple of occasions. 

Our driver said he would treat us to a bottle of our favourite wine (we assume this actually included in our tour price) and after the purchase we headed to the next location.

En-route we discovered the alternative 3rd location (as the 1st was closed) would also be closed by the time we got there so we opted for some money off the tour. After chatting to our driver we realised this was only his second tour which seems to explain his comment about the first stop never being closed before!

At the second vineyard we tasted 5 different wines and again were treated to a free bottle of our favourite. 

After sufficient wine our driver took us back to the hostel, we dropped off our free bottles then had a lift into town for an early dinner. 

In the end 2 vineyards was enough and I'm glad we didn't opt for the 8am start hop on hop off 12 vineyard tour. 

Stellenbosch is a very small quiet town which is mainly composed of university campus. It seems to be much greener than Cape Town and we aren't sure if this is due to a rainier climate or laxer water restrictions. 

We are off to the Cederberg national park tomorrow with has little mobile coverage so there will likely be a pause in blog updates.