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Published: August 13th 2007
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Fawlty Towers After a very slow start, we made our journey to Cape Town, clutching plastic bags. We dropped Gav off at his digs and we had booked a room a couple of streets away in Green Point at some flats suspciously named Fawlty Towers! We pulled up at a dilapidated apartment block, complete with a huge LED display advertising room rates, and were disappointed but hardly surprised it hadn't matched it's guidebook description. We had been a bit sus when the woman expected us to drop off a deposit to them when at the time we were staying over 400km away. Fortunately, the Irish couple had told us about Big Blue, which was only around the corner. The had a room available and was a cracking backpackers offering us a free third night stay, free internet (typical the bloody blog went down while we were there) and actually put chocolates on your pillow and left you free toiletries - this was supposed to be a hostel not a hotel! Jase phoned Fawlty Towers to cancel our room booking and the crazy woman gave him a load of grief, incredibly accusing him from acting unprofessionally! Big Blue was full of public
Rach with her penguins
It was as cold as she looks! school boys on a rugby tour, which made things interesting for Rach trying to get a shower, with lots of 16 year old boys running round in boxer shorts (Steph would have loved it!) but Jase just wished it was a girls netball team. Oh and guess who arrived? The Crazy Dutch Bastards! But they were still very friendly and talking to us.
Cape Town We recovered from our hangovers and ventured out to check out a few local attractions. The Robben Island cruise was booked up for 4 days and when we called each day for a cancellation, discovered all the trips were cancelled due to bad weather. Similarly, the Cable Car at Table Mountain was closed for maintenance and we weren't allowed to walk up due to the wet and windy weather. So that was the two main attractions off limits!
Cape Peninsular After a very stormy night, we drove through the rain down to Cape Point. We took the coast road along False Bay and stopped off at Simon's Town to see the penguins at famous Boulders Beach. The tide was in the bay, so only a few penguins were dotted along the beach. Most
could be seen from Foxy Beach which we accessed by walking along the boardwalk from Boulders. Loads of penguins were nesting in the bushes along the boardwalk, clucking over their cute fluffy chicks, which were often as big or bigger than their fussing mothers. It was fantastic to get so close up to the comical birds! Unfortunately the visitors centre was rammed with coach parties, so we made a hasty exit back along the beach, and drove south to the cape.
Cape of Good Hope was incredibly wild, especially on such a stormy and windy day. Just as we got out of the car, we noticed the car park and nearby cars were covered in a sea of insects. Grey sandy-coloured lice critters were jumping and crawling all over the place and were really gross. We made a mad dash and fought the Japanese tourists to get our photo with the sign, then dived back into the car, fending the offending creatures off. Only a couple of baby ones made it into the car, so Rach swiped them away. Shuddering we pootled round to Cape Point and caught the funincular to the top, furtively eating our Snicker bars out
of site of the greedy baboons. We started to walk up the steps to the Lighthouse and a horrendous hailstorm descended upon us, the hail stones bouncing off us and cutting into our cheeks. We retreated to the information centre to read about the shipwrecks and the history of the cape, which was apparently called Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese King as it offered an alternative passage to India for the Spice Trade. When the rain and hail subsided, we wrung out our jeans and donned our woollies to trek to the top. Here the views of the Cape Peninsular were fantastic!
We travelled back via Boulders Beach again (Rach can't get enough of the penguins) and then through Chapman's Peak which had sweeping views of Hout Bay. We pulled up at Camps Bay to take a few pics of the Twelve Apostles and then stopped at the Cable Car point at Table Mountain. Even here at the bottom of the cable car, the views of the city were superb, it was a shame we couldn't make it to the top.
District Six & Castle We decided to visit the District Six museum, a community project
Cape of good hope
at the tip of africa! dedicated to telling the stories of the families displaced by the evictions and demolition of District Six as it was declared a "white only" area. It was rather sad and the musuem suggested this tool of Apartheid helped shape the future of the blacks and "coloureds" in the Cape, as they lost their homes, jobs, friends, wealth and social networks being moved to the Cape Flats.
Surprisingly the city was rather dead for a Saturday afternoon - a lot of the shops seem to close at lunchtime on Saturdays (bit different to Bullring!). We had lunch at Milk, Bread & Honey which was run by a scarily intense camp guy who praised all our menu choices enthusiastically. Then we went to the castle and caught a guided tour in the rain. You meet some crazy people on holiday! One crazy woman kept taking the most random photos of her hubbie and children, for example, walking out of a door! We also had a mad Aussie couple who thought they were comedians but weren't funny at all. The castle was vaguely interesting but not as much fun as our English castles back home. The tour group were really horrified by
Cape of good hope
up at the lighthouse the rather tame tales of torture in the dungeons and we couldn't help sniggering but the universal admiration for a long table that seated 100 people in the banqueting hall. It was a series of modern tables of unremarkable design lined up with zero table decoration. We watched sniggering whilst the crazy photographer woman proceeded to walk slowly around the whole table, reverently filming it with her camcorder. A pasting table would have been more interesting. As we left the castle some crazy drunk bloke was harrassing the nice soldiers who guard the castle, shouting about "kaffirs taking over the Cape!". Charming! We can't get used to the race relations situation over here!
Last day in Africa Still raining in Cape Town so we decided to visit the Aquarium, but as it was Sunday, everyone else had decided to do the same thing, so we were fighting with small children and old fogies to see the fishies. It was still lots of fun, as the Aquarium had a living kelp forest which is fed by sea water from the harbour, and supports lots of marine life. There were some really big boys in the predator tank and we loved
view from table mountain
well the car park at the cable cars! watching the Raggies swim by. Next we visited the Maritime Museum which had been re-located and was just a few model ships in glass cases - yawn!! Not a patch on Falmouth. We spent the rest of the afternoon packing up, after saying goodbye to the V & A Waterfront after far too many visits. We had our last meal round the corner from our hostel, where we discovered a posh restaurant complete with doorman in red jacket, called Hussars. It served the most delish Tomato & Gin Soup (alcohol at every opportunity) and was famous for its steaks. So it would have been rude not to indulge in a bit of rump. Of course, it was Rach's last night, so it had to be Malva Pudding for desert! Walked back to the hostel in podge agony!
We really enjoyed Africa and after 9 weeks were sad to leave. Here comes Malaysia which will hopefully warm us up after all the cold, wet days in Cape Town!
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Lee
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Fawlty Towers
Lucky you! We unfortunately did NOT call Big Blue when we arrived at Fawlty Towers because we thought "how bad can this be?" And thinking back now, we SHOULD have acted unprofessionally and cancelled our booking too... Because it was THAT bad! To everyone out there: there are many hostels in Cape Town that are more like hotels, so there's no reason to stay in a sh!thole!