Blogs from Boulders Beach, Western Cape, South Africa, Africa

After another excellent breakfast we headed to Muizenberg Beach. Hugely popular even on this grey Friday. The colourful bathing boxes and white sand with long rolling waves are probably more impressive on a better day (and to someone who hasn't always lived near the world's greatest beaches). Heading back around False Bay we stopped at Kalk Bay where we enjoyed a Devonshire Tea by the train line in an old carriage - Expresso 73. Strolled along the foreshore to the harbour where the fish market encourages a couple of seals to hang about. There is also a mini light house. Lots of little shops to explore if you're into that and Ice Cafe has a huge assortment of flavors and the steamy heat meant a double scoop didn't seem ott. Fishoek and St James are also ... read more

Nopix yet-very difficult to find fast internet. Idread thedayi will finally manage to do it because i have hundreds to post. MOtodi and I decided to check out some of cape town today. We saw the cape town castle which looks similar to castle island in boston -so not too interesting. Big Macs taste the same here. So we drove towards cape point -0 the southern most point inthe african continent to check it out. Onthe way I have to stop to take a pic of a frikk in whale's tail sticking out of the ocean about 150 yards out. that was crazy. afew minutes later i'm snapping pix with penguins onthe shoreline at boulder beach. there is some commotion 200yards off shore and im trying tofigure outwtf it is - when i realize i'm looking ... read more

Taking the road out from Cape Town to Muizenberg and then following signs for Simon’s Town. the other one cranked the motor up to 100+ km an hour (on Mahe the fastest road is 80km and anyway our car starts shaking over 60). One rule of the road it seems is to move over into the hard shoulder if people want to overtake on single lane roads, a flash of their hazards signalling thanks; no Seychellois honking here. We passed through seaside towns reminiscent of the English seaside I thought, all stoically coastal in their identity, not trendy but chipper and bright though not quite able to stave off the lingering melancholy that winter brings. Kalk Bay, looked a bit more funky but still more Hastings than Brighton but then we were only driving through. Though ... read more

Our remaining time in Cape Town is spent enjoying the views from Signal Hill, strolling around town and visiting the District Six Museum. As a town planner, urban renewal is a familiar subject, but the forced relocation of a multi-cultural community in Cape Town’s central area (known as District Six) during the apartheid era is something altogether more important. Formerly a neighbourhood occupied by a poor and diverse but culturally rich community, District Six was requisitioned for habitation by whites. The residents were forced to move, sometimes with no advance warning, and their houses and shops were demolished. Despite this mass clearance, few buildings were built in their place, aside from the ugly and sprawling Technikon, which remains once of the only buildings amid the district’s empty streets. Work is now underway to repopulate District Six, ... read more

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