Cape Town & Hong Kong

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We had 4 nights, 5 days in Cape Town and no idea where to start and what to do! We were so used to being in the tour group where everything had been done for us so we had to get used to being in charge of ourselves again. So our first day in Cape Town was spent doing very little, getting our bearings and deciding what we should do for the rest of our stay here.

The next day was a beautiful day, so we went up to see what Table Mountain was all about. The queue was sooooo long, it took us an hour just to get into the cable car, but what a cable car it was, the floor in it rotates which is quite impressive. We walked around the top of the mountain and had the most amazing views of Cape Town, it really is a beautiful city. After such a tiring day, we thought it would be nice to have a few drinks. We met up with Carols friends, Derval & Tom, and joined them on their honeymoon and of course ended up in the obligatory irish pub that every town has.

The next day we went to Robben Island which is where all the political prisoners were kept, including Nelson Mandela. We were brought through the prison by an ex political prisoner who told us some of his memories of the place and the guards in charge at the time. We were also shown Nelson Mandelas cell where he was kept for 18 years.

That evening, back on the mainland we met up with another of Carols friends, Angela, who brought us on a lovley drive along the coast of Cape Town. If you ever come to Cape Town, you must do this drive, its amazing. We had a fantastic steak dinner at Camps Bay by the beach - South African steak did not disappoint.

We saved the best for last - the wine tour! We took in four wineries around the Stellenbosh area, Tokara, Solms Delta, Goats do Roam, and Seidelberg. We also did some cheese, olive and chocolate tastings. Our favourite of the day was probably the last one, Seidelberg, maybe because they did a cellar tour which is one of the best we've been on, plus we had had quite a few at this stage and we bought a very cheap bottle of white for the journey back to Cape Town! During the day we also snuck in a stop at another prison Nelson Mandela was kept in where he took his long walk to freedom from.

After waking with fuzzy heads, we had a very lazy day before our flight back to Johannesburg, checking out the Waterfront area and walking around Long street and the markets. We had one night in Joburg and then we were off to Hong Kong.

We stayed in Hong Kong with Carols sister, Michelle and her friend Bridget (aka peaceful moon :-) ) and had a great time. We went shopping in some markets in Mong Kok - everything was so cheap, Carol was in heaven. And we also managed to squeeze in dinner and drinks with some more of our friends living in Hong Kong (Sean, Mark, Tash, Matt). Hong Kong was much larger than we expected, with so many sky scrapers, it would give New York a run for its money. Although it was short, we enjoyed our stay here.

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