Advertisement
Published: December 28th 2020
Edit Blog Post
Today we were to leave the guesthouse and return to the MSVG which had arrived in Cape Town at the harbour next to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront at 7.00 this morning. S & P picked us up at 10.00 am, drove us to the docks and kindly helped us transfer our bits and pieces to the ship. As well as our two small backpacks our chattels had been increased by Geoffrey a 1.50 metre carved wooden giraffe, about 15 bottles of assorted Stellenbosch and assorted cushion covers and presents for the kids and friends.
The harbour at Cape Town is South Africa's oldest working harbour and has been developed for mixed-use, with both residential and commercial real estate. By a streak of genius with a bit of local knowledge, even though we did not know at exactly which quay the ship was moored, S managed to go straight to the right gate. After some negotiation the gatekeeper let us through. This is where our luck ran out. We were within 20 metres of the ship but couldn't talk the final guy into letting us on the actual jetty - probably because the French navy were in port opposite and
it was more than his job's worth. Also, it wasn't possible to get S & P back on the MSVG which they were rather looking forward to. We had to go all the way around and through security. So, after half an hour of legging the backpacks, wine boxes and Geoffrey etc. back to our cabin, it was approaching lunchtime.
The waterfront itself consists of many shops and restaurants as well as posh condos and apartments. It is named for Queen Victoria and her second son (and 4th child) who visited the Cape Colony harbour in 1860 as a sixteen-year-old Royal Navy Midshipman on HMS Euryalus. He made a big splash with the colonials on this first-ever visit by a member of the Royal Family. The first basin of the new Navy Yard was named after him and the second after his mother.
In order to thank S & P for a fabulous time we suggested we had a final lunch on the waterfront and went to an excellent restaurant called the Greek Fisherman. We didn't know it at the time, but later reading the blurb, we learned that this restaurant had won an award for its fine
food the previous year. It was very good, as were all of our eating experiences in South Africa and, given the location right on the waterfront with fabulous views of Table Mountain, extremely reasonably priced. We lingered over our lunch for around an hour and a half.
After lunch, we were driven to the foot of Table Mountain (Tafelberg) and dropped at the entrance to the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway (TMAC) where we said our final goodbyes to Stewart and Pam. We may have been fortunate with our timing but we waited seconds to purchase tickets and got on the first cable car. Rather cleverly, the inside of the car rotates so during the journey up you get a full 360 degree panorama. The mountain forms part of the Table Mountain National Park. The main feature of Table Mountain is the level plateau approximately three kilometres (2 miles) from side to side, edged by impressive cliffs. The plateau, flanked by Devil's Peak to the east and by Lion's Head to the west, forms a dramatic backdrop to Cape Town. This broad sweep of mountainous heights, together with Signal Hill , forms the natural amphitheatre of the City Bowl area
of Cape Town and Table Bay harbour. The highest point on Table Mountain is towards the eastern end of the plateau and is marked by Maclear's Beacon, a stone cairn built in 1865 by Sir Thomas Maclear for trigonometrical survey purposes. It is 1,086 metres (3,563 feet) above sea level, and about 19 metres (62 feet) higher than the cable station at the western end of the plateau.
Once on the plateau there were a number of walking options; we walked around anti clockwise for a good hour or so. M was disappointed she didn't see the Dassies (aka Rock Hyraxes or Rock Rabbits) - small rodent like creatures, native to Africa and the Middle East, that are actually closely related to elephants. We did, though, take some fabulous photos of the view in most directions. We finished our walk with a glass of wine before descending on the TMAC around 4.30 pm when, surprisingly, there were more people ascending than we had seen when we went up a couple of hours earlier. We took a cab back to the V&A Waterfront and watched a jazz band of old timers perform for half an hour or so before we
did some shopping and returned to the ship.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.087s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 12; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0462s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb