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Published: August 16th 2006
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Cape Town - our final stop !
We're right at the end of our trip now and both looking forward to going home, and sad to come to the end of our adventures. We're staying with Alex who is friend of mine from the Southampton climbing club and has been living in Cape town for the last 3 years. Unfortunately our timing could have been better ! The week that we've decided to decend on Alex happens to be the final week of her masters...
Table mountain dominates Cape Town as it is right slap bang in the middle of the city. We set off somewhat nervously to attack the mountain. Finding the cable car shut for winter maintainance, there was no choice but to go for it the hard way - on foot. Halfway up the path divides into India Venster - a 'Serious scramble' only to be undertaken by experienced people, and an easy route which just zig zags up a made path up a large gully.
Which way did Bernard and Louise take ? Well we just can't ignore a challenge (and with a tip from Alex on what to expect) up we went on India Venster. The
Table Mountain
Our route up - see, I wasn't joking! route was quite challenging with some serious questions on the rocky sections along the lines of 'but will you catch me?' at certain moments. After three and a half hours we summited to the flat top of table moutain - the air had cleared as we'd climbed and we could see for miles over the town and out to sea.
Taking the simpler route down we congratulated ourselves on a fantastic day.
It wouldn't be right to leave South Africa without trying some real proper surfing, Alex took us to Muizenburg - a perfect surfing spot for beginners. Clad in what can only be described as a day glow wetsuit, I took to the waves. Expecting to be riding the tube within half an hour - after all, I'd read the advanced sections in Alex's learn to surf book - I was surprised to find that it's a bit harder than it looks...
I did manage to stand up twice though, which was brilliant !
Penguins - apparently they don't only live at the north pole and london Zoo - there's a large colony of them in South Africa. We went to see them near Simon's Town on
Table Mountain
Fantastic views on the way up. the Cape Peninsula. Fantastic to see so many penguins, and they've cleverly constructed a board walk so that the penguins aren't threatened by the humans (and vice versa!) and you can get right in amongst them. Futher down the shore there's a little beach where you can go and swim with the penguins - in the summer though - even the penguins thought it was a bit cold in winter!
Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. A fantastic place which takes longer to get to than you'd think! We joined all the other tourists at Cape Point, the south-eastern most point in Africa (contrived but true) to look out to sea. A strange place but well worth the trip. The Cape of Good Hope is more down at sea level and you can go right up to the huge breaking waves and look up at the light house on Cape Point. They moved the light house down some years ago, the first light house was right on the top of the ridge, but was so often hidden by cloud that no one could see it - resulting in the wreck of the Luistana in 1911.
Sadly we
Table Mountain
Fantastic views on the way up. had to say goodbye return our long suffering car - our golf did 6000km with us behind the wheel - and as the hire car man said we returned it - "you have made a new car an old car"!
Robben Island - Jump on the ferry and suddenly you're on Robben Island - the site of the prision used to house Nelson Mandela and other political prisioners during the time of apartheid. We did a tour of the island by coach, and then were given a guided tour of the prision by an ex-inmate. This proved quite moving as the tale unfolded of how the prisioners were treated, and how they plotted to make a better South Africa once the mantle of apartheid was thrown off, which they always believed would happen. Several ex- prisioners and warders now live on the island. The island itself was much larger than I expected some 13 sq km, and had several ruins and cemetries on it from when it was a prison for the British, and before that it was a leaper colony.
Finally on our last full day, another friend of ours, Laura turned up to visit Alex as
Table Mountain
Us at the top. well. We took Laura for a walk on the Lions Head a smaller peak to one side of Table Mountain. In some ways it felt quite normal to be out walking with Laura just as we might at home in the Lake District or in North Wales - but also quite strange when we haven't been in blightly for 5 months now and we're still in the southern hemisphere!
Finally a trip to the airport and we're flying home back to the land of our forebears...
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