We won’t let the weather stop us

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The first day of spring in Cape Town

Another overcast day greeted us this morning as the 1st September heralded the start of spring. However there was none of the ominous dark grey clouds of the days before looming and the weather seemed altogether calmer so we set off in high hopes of today being the day we would conquer Table Mountain. We made use of Berk to remind us of the route to Table Mountain and were soon at the lower cable car station; in time to see that the cable cars were running - hooray. We donned varying layers and woolly hats and walked up to the ticket booth in time for the “service suspended” sign to appear. Apparently it had just got too windy for the cable cars to run. We hung about for 10 minutes or so before giving up and deciding to come back the next day. It’s a good job it’s only a 5km journey to get there.

Back in the car we drove back into Cape Town to find a restaurant called the African Cafe that is renowned as being the best place to eat African food in Cape Town. Unfortunately, although we did find it, it only opened for dinner so we went next door to eat at a Deli. Here we ate the best freshly made sushi we had ever had, it was fantastic, the fish was so good that you could cut it by pressing your chopstick on it. Suitably stuffed we ventured on to find District Six, in particular the District Six museum. This area was the area in Cape Town that the government designated a white-only area in 1966, razing the existing houses to the ground and carrying out a forced exodus of all non-white occupants. The museum depicts life as it was in District Six for the original inhabitants and presents some idea of what it was like to live as a non-white under the apartheid regime. The area itself is gradually becoming multi-cultural again. Mark chatted at length to the author of a book about District Six who told him that the situation in South Africa still hadn’t changed enough. Non-whites are still the lower class, unable to get the better jobs and therefore the better standard of living. We could pretty much see that social stratification for ourselves anyway, but it was still a little disheartening to hear it first-hand.

Berk (the Vodacom sat-nav) was nowhere near as charismatic or useful as Twiki. When you turned it on, first it didn’t find a satellite for ages and then it bellowed “Left! Right! Right!LEFTLEFTLEFTLEFT!” until it reckoned it found the right way. Other times it invented roads for you to turn into. Mark wanted to smash it frequently.

Following on from this museum we continued our cultural tour by visiting the South Africa Museum, primarily as it had a Planetarium, which the kids were keen to visit. Unfortunately when we arrived we were informed that the Planetarium was closed for maintenance - typisch! Still we spent an enjoyable couple of hours here learning about whales, other mammals, dinosaurs, fossils etc. The museum is notable for having a quagga foal (stuffed) which are now extinct. The quagga was a kind of zebra-like animal but not as stripey, notably it had no stripes on its legs.

It was back to the V&A to cash in some travellers cheques, go shopping for birthday presents for Mark and buy some fantastic Thai takeaway for tea, before retiring back to our apartment for the evening. At the end of the day we realised that it hadn’t rained all day, mind you the sun hadn’t shined either but the fact that there had been no rain really heralded in the first day of spring.

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Photos

Inside District Six Museum
Segregation Signage