Cape Town; Table mountain, shopping & swimming with penguins.

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Farewell Oasis
Day 321 (25/2/09)
We packed up our gear and headed out for breaky all feeling a little worse for wear.
With our gear loaded into Barbara for one last time as we set off for our final destination (on tour) Cape Town. We arrived at the very impressive Backpack Hostel mid morning checked in and cooked ourselves up some lunch. We chilled by the pool for a couple hours and then headed up to Table Mountain. Table mountain is Cape Towns icon sitting 1086m above the Table Bay and if often draped in rich cloud known as the table cloth.
We caught the cable car up not knowing if the weather (as there was barely a cloud in sight but apparently the table cloth can come from no where destroying the spectacular view) would hold or because we were just lazy!!
Hangovers on the mend we opted for some more cheese and wine whilst the others grabbed some lunch then to the scenic route around the top of the mountain, entertained by our fellow tourists novel poses.
We headed back down via the cable car to prepare for our final Oasis group dinner. .

Day 322
After a quick breaky at the backpack he headed to the famous LONG st for some shopping. Fortunately there were loads of sales on, so we picked up a few bargains with the contents of our backpacks looking rather worn out stopping at Debonairs Pizza (overrated!) for lunch. We watched some local film makers at it in the middle of long street then met up with Vicky, Owen, Mike, Gizelle, Lis, Andy and Jono for our deluxe wine tasting. After a quick change we headed out for dinner at one of the local pubs along Long street and mohito's. Then moved across the road to another pub for more drinks, a dance with the look alike of Blue from Old School before catching a taxi back with the others.....a great night on the town!!

Day 323
Keen to see as much of South Africa as we could we decided to hire some cars and head to the Cape of Good Hope, Carly held high hopes that her hangover would ease and promptly, which it did.
Stopped at Fishhock for some KFC (need I say more) long enough for Vicky to lose of of her thongs?!? Our first stop was Cape Point considered the most southern point of South Africa. After the cable ride up we dragged ourselves to the lighthouse for some spectacular views of the coast line. Next stop was the Cape of Good Hope close to where the Atlantic and Indian oceans met (its actually at Cape of Golias).
We continued on to Simontosh to the Boulders the home of thousands of penguins. 'Daper little fellows in suits'. We moved to a point where you can swim with the penguins on the beach just in time as the tide was coming in. We marveled at how fast they swam, were amused at the line up (see pic) and mother penguin guarding her eggs. On the way back we stopped for Vicky to replace her thongs and Carly to purchase a new top. Back at Cape Town we headed to the supermarket to collect out tickets for the cricket, pick up a small gift for Mel and Franco and some supplies for the following day.
With Vicky, Owen and Jen we headed to the waterfront for dinner at Wang Thai and wandered around the beautiful docks. We met the others at the Backpack for final farewells and promised to keep in touch with our new mates. Finally we retreated to our dorm in attempt to pack everything that we had accumulated of the past 3months into a backpack and under 20kg. After donating a few things to orphanage we crashed for a few hours sleep.

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