Capetown

Capetown
We flew from Livingstone to Jo'Burg, then transited for about an hour before catching our flight to Capetown. During the transit we picked up some eyedrops for Cath who had picked up an infection in her right eye, probably due to putting contact lenses in and out in a grubby tent for a month! We arrived in Capetown arond 7.30pm and took a shuttle bus south to Simonstown where we would spend five nights at Simonstown Backpackers.

Bedbugs

We got to sleep pretty soon after arrival but awoke in the middle of the night with bites on our arms. Oh no we thought, bed bugs! And sure enough, after pulling off the bedding there were bugs crawling over the bed and headboard. Aghhhh!!!! We told the guy who was at reception who immediately told us there were no other beds. We told him there was no way we were sleeping in that room. After a bit of two and frowing, two French girls offered us their beds in a dorm and they slept downstairs where there was room (it was very generous and I can't thank them enough for their kindness). We settled down for the

In a rush..

Did someone mention Bluebird chips were on special?

night but in the morning we had to approach the manager Kenneth about what had happened. Kenneth was extremely apologetic. He knew there had been bedbugs in the room but he had treated them and he thought everything was okay. A man had spent five nights previously in the room with no problem, he said. Well, that wasn't going to help us! Luckily there was a room spare, a double with an ensuite and a balcony that we could move into our the remaining 4 nights. We then used the washing machine/dryer to systematically start washing all of our stuff. Kenneth took our backpacks to his house to wash in the bathtup as they could not be put in a washing machine.

Boulders Bay
That afternoon we made it down to the penguin colony in boulders bay, a short 15 minute walk from our hostel. The penguins were very cute waddling around below the boardwalk. We had a lovely dinner in town before settling in for the night. Cath wasn't feeling very well and by the next morning had developed a nasty cold. So she stayed in bed most of the day while Brent carried on washing the clothes.

Simonstown

Another town, another sunset

We made it out that evening for a quick meal then back to bed with a movie on Brent's phone.

Table Mountain
As we had such a short time in Capetown, Cath dragged her snotty carcus out of bed the next day to take the train into Capetown to take the cableway up Table Mountain. We were lucky to get up early before the cloud moved in - we literally got just a few photos in before we were surrounded in fog! It was still a nice walk around on the mountain, which, if you didn't get the hint from the name, is flat like a table at the top. We then took the cable car down and got a taxi to the VIctoria & Albert waterfront. Unfortunately we realised we had come in on the day of the World Cup semi-final so the waterfront was absolutely packed out. After struggling to walk around we decided to call it a day and headback on the train.

Stellenbosh
The next day we had booked in a full day wine tour of the famous wine district Stellenbosh. It was a private tour with our driver Dave & also included a

Strings attached

Up in the cable car

visit to a small Cheetah farm. (the only animal we had missed out seeing in the wild). We visited four different wineries and had a very good selection of wines to taste. Cath struggled with the tasting as she was still very stuffed up with a cold, but it was lovely driving around the area. We also got a good view of the infamous Townships that surround the area. We did not realise how massive they are and will surely continue to be an issue for the South African government for some time to come.

The next day we were up by 5am to catch our minibus to the airport, this ending the African part of our journey. We were on our way to Bangkok, Thailand.

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