Blogs from Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa, Africa - page 9

Last night was very stormy and we were all woken up(with the exception of Fred) to the sound of furniture on the terrace being blown around. I actually thought someone had got into house and was expecting to see a big black man on the other side of the door!! Today is very calm so able to have breakfast on terrace. Picked up at 11.30 to go down to waterfront to meet Vivienne and Jean-Paul. We had a lovely long lunch at the Waterfront Fishmarket then back to Jean-Paul's for coffee. Finished off the day with a couple of drinks at Camps Bay and back to villa to see Andy win his tennis match much to the delight of his number one fan Veronica- in bed by 10. You can tell we are pensioners as obsessed ... read more

After a good nights sleep out by 10.30. Fred driving so started out with short trip to Hout Bay - very windy. Only there for short time,took photo, wondered around a market then back to Camps Bay for lunch and some food shopping at a very nice Spar shop. Back to villa and did some sunbathing on roof terrace - very blustery. We're still recovering from journey so eating in then early night as going to meet Vivienne at waterfront tomorrow - we are so sensible in our old age(lol)... read more

Flight delayed by one hour and despite our best attempts no upgrade to business class so had to make do with cattle class. Flight very busy and have to say felt a bit cramped.. We all managed to snooze at some point. Got to car rental place and after a long wait we got underway. We all said we would get lost despite having detailed directions and after stopping and asking at least six different people a road worker called Mario asked someone if we could follow him. He was an ADT security guard and was armed, Chockey gave him a 50 rand tip(£3) you should have seen him dancing back to his van!! Eventually arrived at La Plantacion but nobody there to meet as and we couldn't get past security gates. After Chockey getting in ... read more

This week we moved into our own place for 6 nights and we stayed in the lovely guest house I stayed in last year - Little Orchard. It is in a very "posh" suburb of Cape Town called Constantia. Little Orchard is run by Graeme, an old gentleman who will help you as much as he possibly can. He even gave us a few free lifts. Unlimited breakfast every morning and 2 streets away from a small shopping centre with a good selection of restaurants. If you want to book you need to do so directly through him. We used Uber to navigate our way around but if you were staying here and wanted to travel distance then I recommend hiring a car. We were fortunate enough that we had friends who would take us to ... read more

We flew Manchester to Doha, Doha to Cape Town. The flights were ok and luckily the first flight had some empty seats so we had the three seats between us. Doha is hot and the airport was large enough with plenty to do so we were able to easily occupy ourselves for the two hour stopover. We landed in Cape Town to bright blue skies and not a cloud in sight. Finally some heat. We were greeted by Clinton, he has this infectious laugh and a positive approach to life. He is the head grounds man for the school I visited with George last year. He does many roles and works some long hours but this never seems to phase him. We arrived at Zwaanswyk Academy, Cape Town (my works partner school.) We were greeted with ... read more