A Day on the Town
Monday: Without much of a plan at all Jono and I jumped in our tiny rented Hyandai Atos and hauled ourselves along the N2 to Cape Town. At 120ish kms per hour our comically small car was hating life, but not as much as it did when the minibus taxis jetted past, sending it ricocheting across the lane in their wake.
The drive to Cape Town is takes about 40 minutes from Stellenbosch in good traffic and travels past the huge township of Khayelitsha, which kicked off as a result of the Apartheid regime's Groups Areas Act from the 1950s, but people were being forcibly removed from 'White' areas as recently as the 1980s. From the point where Baden Powell Drive meets the N2 the only thing breaking your vision of the shacks is Table Mountain in the distance.
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| Khayelitsha. Driving towards False Bay, taken on Wednesday 9 Feb. |
Once in Cape Town we headed to the District 6 Museum based in the old Coloured area exactly where many people were forcibly removed to the Cape Flats. The museum was set up to uphold the memories of the previous residents. There is a map on the floor as you walk in where residents are encouraged to note down their memories of where they and their friends lived and the stories. It's a fitting place to visit after the eye-opening drive from Stellenbosch.
From there we headed down to the Victoria and Albert Waterfront for a look around and some lunch. But we failed at both - after four years in Circular Quay I was a bit over tourist prices and fishy smells so we ended up buying ourselves some tickets for the Robben Island ferry the next day and skeddadling over to Clifton Beach for lunch instead. I'm glad we chose the next day to travel, because the fog had really settled into Cape Town that day, hampering our other plans for an afternoon on Table Mountain.
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| The mist burning off Clifton Beach at 3 in the afternoon. |
After a failed trip to CT and a lurking stomach bug, we called it quits for the day and headed home in the early afternoon. But not without a stop at Van Ryn’s Brandy distillery on the way home for three brandies, coffee and chocolate. Plush!
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| Van Ryns |
Tuesday: Early start – 9am ferry to Robben Island pitted us right into the morning traffic to Cape Town, which rivaled Military Road’s ability to send us both insane. If we hadn’t have risked a fine and jumped in the bus lane, we wouldn’t have made it on time (but don’t tell Audrey).
Once on the Island we hopped on a tour bus for a drive around with an hilarious tour guide who was determined to have a story for nationality on board the bus. Standing right next to him, it was hard to avoid his dramatic rant about the effects the Eucalyptus have on the Island. He also tried to blame the rabbit population on me, but I quickly sent that one over to the Poms. We were lucky with our guide, he was extremely knowledgeable and had guided to countless dignitaries, including Mandela and Obama, on separate occasions (not sure how much guiding Mandela needed, after his prison years he’s visited the Island another 14 times).
From the bus it was into the prison with an ex-prisoner as a guide. I wished they had focused more on the prison and less on the Island, in the end we rushed through to get back on the bus. Each cell had a story from the prisoner who inhabited it and unfortunately we only got to see a few.
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| Robben Island |
From Robben Island it was straight up to Table Mountain. The mist still loomed, but the mountain had been nice enough to peel back enough of its table cloth to give us an excellent view over the city bowl, the water front and to Robben Island as well as back towards Cape Point, with the mist pouring over the mountain.
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| Table Mountain |
Natural Encounters
Wednesday: Hod had an excursion to Cape Point planned for us, so we hit the road and headed south to False Bay and then followed the Bay west through Fish Hoek and Simon's Town, past Cecil Rhodes' old house, past a sign warning us about crossing golfers, shortly followed by one warning us about crossing Baboons, hugging the mountain as we went.
Despite excessive signs warning us that baboons will try to steal our food, one still managed to get my lunch. Jono had gone to the loo, the baboon guard had disappeared and I was putting something in the bin when a mother baboon with a baby on board headed straight for poor Hod. Hod enthusiastically waved her crutch at the robber and then moved faster than I thought possible to get away from the thief. Jono hasn't let me live this one down.
After all that excitement it was time to make our way to the lighthouse. It was already blustery at the car park, so by the time we reached the light house it was blowing a gale!
The light house wasn't the closest you could get to the Point though, so we wound our way down the hill into more wind to say that we had been at the most south-westerly point of the continent (the most southerly point was another few hours drive away to L'Agulhas, so we settled for Cape Point.
The small Mond
Thursday: Thursday was change over day, so we met Audrey's daughter, Gillian in Somerset West half way between Stellenbosch and her house in Kleinmond, and bid farewell to our dear Aunt Hod.
This time we headed east around False Bay, to the small coastal town of Kleinmond nestled between the mountains and the sea. Almost as soon as we got to Kleinmond it was time to pick the girls (Emma, Dayna and Caitlin) up from school, so we joined Gillian in collecting the girls from their Kinder-7, 200 student school. It's the loveliest school, where kids don't wear shoes until they're in year 7 (to prepare them for wearing shoes in high school) and where we were introduced to the school secretary, who had heard so much about us! Very sweet!
Afterwards we headed back to the house for a lunch of biltong quiche, and put our togs and headed to the river (their local beach offers water temps hovering around 10degrees, the ocean floor drops away quickly and the rips drag you out onto the rocks, so river it was). The water is a salt/river water hybrid so is slightly salty but coloured dark from the trees upstream. The pools in the rocky river bed are so deep that you can jump from the bridge 20m above. On the surface the water is bath warm, but if you dive beneath the surface it will take your breath away.
Friday: After the girls went to school we kicked off the day with a walk along the coast to the harbour for breakfast at a nursery. Afterwards Gillian took us to see some nearby wild horses at the waterlands. We only saw one horse, but plenty of birds, including flamingoes!
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| Breakfast (scrambled eggs, salmon and a croissant mmmm) with Gillian, Rijk and Jono in Kleinmond |
In the afternoon we borrowed the Challenger and headed to the penguin colony at Betty's Bay and got back in time to have lunch with the girls before they headed off for a weekend camp. As soon as Gillian got home from dropping them at the bus she poured a round of gin and tonics and we relaxed out on the patio.
Saturday: We were due to leave Kleinmond on the 8am bus on Sunday to start our Garden Route journey and head to Mossel Bay, but early on Saturday morning Gillian received a call from Hod saying things were too quiet at home so she would come and stay with us in Kleinmond that night. We hadn't booked the bus or our Mossel Bay accommodation, so it was an easy decision to stay until Monday morning.
After the phone call from Hod we packed a couple of small backpacks and headed off to climb Jean's Hill behind Kleinmond. We climbed up the back of the hill through the fynbos (apparently there are more plant species on that hill than there are in all of the UK) and wildflowers.
At the top we could see back to more mountains, down to Kleinmond and the wild horses. Supermum Gillian had packed croissants and champagne for breakfast up on the mountain - what a treat!
We headed back down to the car via the front of the mountain and I had another wild encounter when I stepped over a snake sunning itself (and nearly died of shock as Rijk had spent a good amount of time earlier on telling us all about the venomous snakes and spiders and how their different venoms work, YIK!).
Before lunch Jono and I borrowed the car again and headed to Hermanus, famous for being a popular stopover for whales during their migratory seasons. No whales this time, but we hit up the markets and grabbed a pizza and beer for lunch. Last time I was at the Hermanus markets the stalls were just someone's wares displayed on a blanket in the car park, but by this visit they had become more formal and in a way, less interesting. Except for the massai in full get up, and wearing a pair of red geek glasses with the lenses knocked out.
Not long after we arrived home Hod arrived and we all went to the river to cool off with a swim. While Jono kept Hod company on the banks of the river, Gillian and I had competitions to touch the bottom of the river (Rijk chickened out). A couple of times the bottom was just beneath us, but another time I ducked down and with the breath knocked out of me by the cold and the water getting darker I had no luck in getting to the bottom.
Back home Gillian opened the bar and it was time the Braai! Lekker roast potatoes, boerwurst, steak and topped off with Hod's icecream tart (gingernut bottom, caramel middle and icecream on top…mmmm!) for desert.
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| Time To Braai - Featuring the Man of the House, the Lady of the House, Hod, Demi the Dog, Boerwurst and delish potatoes! |
Sunday: Went for a run to burn off some of last night's braai, then headed to Betty's Bay and Hangklip, west of Kleinmond, for a drive and a swim. Both towns 'hide' themselves from tourists, by not advertising their beaches. There are no street lamps and only native plants are allowed in gardens. It's very Edenesque once you make your way to the water - crystal clear, bright white sands and the mountains right there watching over you as you swim.
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| Bettys Bay and Hangklip |
Rijk rode his bike over to Hangklip to meet us for lunch at a simple, easy and cheap place called The Anchorage, in a simple and easy part of the world.
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