Advertisement
Published: January 24th 2013
Pre-tour- Cape Town
The adventure begins in Cape Town with a dear school friend Nardee Brims (who now lives and works here). Nardee, tour guide extraordinaire offered me two abodes to split my time whilst here, one at the Bantry Bay mansion with five welcoming and fun roommates and the other mansion on million dollar mile (Nardee’s boss’ house that we took the pleasure of looking after) both of which had hideous views and made life really tough!. Day one in Cape Town commenced with seeing a man who was a bilateral amputee cruising down the highway in his wheelchair in trackies and a beanie in 30 degree heat. It was first, but im sure it won’t be the last time I heared myself saying ‘only in Africa’. Our time in Cape Town involved lapping up the sunshine and bathing in the icey waters of Camps Bay and Clifton beaches (my pastie white body took a beating day one leaving some interesting tan marks). We hiked up Table Mountain in a record breaking time of 1.15 hours through Planttesklip Gorge. Hot and sweaty, with shakey we got to the top, and well worth the scrambling. The breath taking views overlooking the 12 apostles, Lion’s Head and the coast line were just spectacular and we made use of the rocks to strike some much loved gymnastic poses. We picnicked and relaxed in the beautiful botanical gardens of Kirstenbosch. We enjoyed sipping on the delights that the South African wine regions Stellenbosch and Franschhoek had to offer (Speir, Lanzerac, Boschendale, La Petite Femme and Haute Cabriere) ending the day ballroom dancing with our personal driver (we forgot to count our drinks!). We wined and dined in Hout and Kalk Bays with friends, tasting exquisite seafood dishes, steak with a chocolate sauce (Nardee’s two most favourite foods together). We meandered through Green Market square and whipped the credit cards out at the V&A Waterfront for some retail therapy. We added to the Nardee and Alex team by purchasing Beatrice (Betty for short) the Flamingo and Mable the chicken to join in our antics particularly with drives around the cape. I believe there were a few sideways glances at Betty’s dance moves at the traffic lights. I experienced my first Brai thanks to Steve and Caroline’s hospitality tasting delicious lazy aged rump, chicken sosatties and boerewors. It definitely competed with Johnny Mac’s lamb on the BBQ.
Cape Town is such an amazing city offering the city and coastal life and the first place in the world that I have travelled to that reminds me the most of home and has made me excited about moving home (although Nard has already made calls to hospitals here to get me to stay).
The biggest highlight of my stay in Cape Town without a doubt was being able to spend so much quality time with such gorgeous and generous friend. We shared countless laughs, gossip sessions, reminisced on school days and gymnastic days, skyped friends together who are scattered all over the world, made life plans and goals (life partners at 40 if the men in our lives fail us), commencing operation DP, called psychics, created new nicknames VB and BS and many other shinnanigans that will continue to make me wet my pants from laughter when reminiscing.
Thank you for being such an amazing host Nards and showing me your beautiful Cape Town. Thank you for our years of friendship and look forward to the many more to come.
The remaining of my time in Cape Town will be spent with Nardee and Simon who I am very excited to see tomorrow. We have Robben Island, Lion’s Head hike, the Cape Point with the penguins and a night away with friends in Langebaan to look forward to so will keep you posted.
Ciao for now xx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.058s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 5; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0361s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Valerie
non-member comment
Wow you are going to have a fabulous trip.Enjoy every moment of it.When you are young is the time to do all these things. Will continue to follow you. Aloha Valerie.