Cape Town

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On arrival I was shown to my room and was slightly surprised to find it in the dark and fully occupied by 4 blokes all asleep, it was only 16:00!! They must have had one hell of a night!! After dumping my gear I had a wander round Long St which seems to be the main drag of Cape Town, where many of the bars, restaurants and shops could be found.

The next morning I was up and out straight away to climb Table Mountain, the Hostel is one of the nearest to it but it would still take well over an hour to get to the start so I flagged down a taxi. The cable car wasn’t running due to the strong winds but the driver dropped me off there anyway, so I had to walk for around 20 mins to get to the start of the walk proper. The sun was out and it was a great walk up which took around 1 ½ hour. On the way up I didn’t see anyone else but that was become it was quite early, on the way down I passed around 30 people going up. Around half way up the path branches off and I continued up to the steep accent through Platteklip Gorge. The other path takes you to the top via a circuitous route and takes more than double the time.

Once at the top the path splits again you can go left to Maclear’s beacon or right to cross the top of the mountain to the cable car. It wasn’t worth doing either of these walks as the top was shrouded in mist (the tablecloth as they call it locally). Because of this I had to climb down the same way. At the top I got chatting to an Israeli couple who offered by a cheese sandwich which was very nice of them and even better said they would give me a lift back to the hostel – result!!.

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The next day I was joining a tour round the cape with Baz Bus, Roger was our guide and literally didn’t stop talking throughout it, it was very informative though and I got to learn all about the cape.

The first stop was Hout bay where we all got back on a boat to visit Duiker Island where there was a Cape Fur seal colony, the made for quite an impressive site on the approach to the Island but the smell was far stronger. They live on a diet of fish, shrimps, shellfish and quid so I guess you can imagine!! The bulls can weigh up to 350Kg and the females 113 Kg.

After hopping back on the bus our next stop was Boulders beach, this is a sheltered cove nestling between Simons Town and Cape Point, Boulders has become famous for its colony of African Penguins and its beaches. The African penguin was previously known as the Jackass penguin due to the donkey-like braying call, however, there are numerous breeds of penguins that have the same call so this breed was called African instead.

Whilst I was there the birds were moulting, this is when their old worn feathers are replaced, they lose their waterproofing and this are confined to hold for the 21 days this takes. Like Cape Fur seals the penguins fatten up before this period as they are not able to feed.

After the penguins we then headed off to Cape Point but before arriving there we got onto our mountain bikes for a leisurely ride to the visitors centre where we had lunch. The next stop would be cape point which is the South Eastern tip of the cape peninsula. It was incredible windy and busy but it gave breath-taking views and all along the walk to the top we were closely watched by the local baboons. These had become quite aggressive in their search for food and there has been many examples where they have stolen bags off tourists that contained food. They had also scratched and bitten some of them as well.

The tour then went off for a one hour walk to the Cape of good hope which is the South Western point on the peninsula. On the way back to Cape town we got snared up in a traffic jam which was caused by an ostrich standing in the middle of the road! Only in Africa.

The next day I was on a flight back to Joburg from where I caught by flight home to rainy Manchester via Dubai.

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