On Monday, we drove to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. We started off at the sculpture garden which was an outdoor display of African stone sculptures for sale. Then we visited the observatory which contained an unusual selection of succulents, bulbs and other desert plants. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had lunch of sandwiches before spending a couple of pleasant hours wandering through the gardens past the proteas, restios, ericas (heath), fynbos, cycads and aloes. Then we decided that we would do another scenic drive along the coast in the opposite direction to the route that we did on Sunday with Teresa. We started our route back at Camps Bay, then we meandered along the coast road past Clifton, Bantry Bay, and Sea Point. At Green Point, we turned inland towards the centre of town, parked the car and had a walk around town.
The next morning was really dark and cloudy. We drove into town and parked at the secure car park at the Waterfront. Then we walked to Parliament where we found that all tours had been suspended for the duration of the World Cup. We walked around to Green Market Square to see the Dutch Masters in the Michaelis Collection. To our surprise there was no entry fee so we happily donated R20. We walked around the gallery and saw some South African Art but there was no sign of any Dutch Masters! When we asked at the ticket office they told us that they were all in storage! It started raining as we walked to the Castle of Good Hope – a star-shaped fort built by Dutch settlers. The fort contained an excellent Military Museum with a detailed history of the history of the Cape through the Dutch occupation for 143 years, the takeover by the British, the frontier wars, and the Boer wars together with collections of guns and swords. There was also the William Fehr Collection of period furniture and paintings with an enormous dining room upstairs, and the Secunde's House which contained reconstructions of living rooms including a quaint box bed and a display about the Cape Town Carnival. Then we ran across the quadrangle in the rain to have a quick look at the dungeon/torture chamber. We tried to catch a taxi back to the Waterfront, where our car was parked. We managed to flag down a local minibus which dropped us off at the wrong end of the Waterfront so it was still quite a walk to our car but luckily the rain had stopped.
We drove to Stellenbosch to catch up with Sibella who we met in Leh, the capital of Ladakh, the northern state of India bordering Tibet. Sibella lived with her husband Alan and her daughter Juliette in a luxurious house on the De Zalze Winelands and Golf Estate five minutes drive away from the town centre.
After breakfast on Wednesday morning we drove into Stellenbosch and went for a walk around town where we admired the beautiful Cape Dutch style whitewashed buildings lining the streets, saw some bronze sculptures of animals by Dylan Lewis and visited some craft markets. Then we headed out of town towards Franschhoek.
Our first stop was the DeliCATessen at Tokara where we had a delicious lunch. Then we visited the Camberley Vineyard where the affable winemaker chatted to us as we tasted three varieties of his shiraz. Then we had a quick look at the Delaire Vineyard, Hotel and Spa (owned by Graff the jeweller of Bond Street). Sibella had told us that R 500 million had been spent on this vineyard. There were some animal sculptures by Dylan Lewis on the estate and a wonderful Easter Island style head at the entrance.
We drove to Franschhoek and spent a pleasant hour walking up and down the main street past the cafes, shops and art galleries. After visiting the M-shaped Huguenot Monument, we drove to the Boekenhoutskloof Estate (makers of The Chocolate Block, Porcupine Ridge and The Wolftrap wines). We spent a little time tasting some wines and ended up buying a mixed case of wine to send to Tibby and Geoff (half Chocolate Block and half Porcupine Ridge Sauvignon Blanc). It took us an hour to drive back to Cape Town through some peak hour traffic as we got close to the city.
We spent most of Thursday indoors doing some research on the next leg of our trip to Namibia and the Etosha National Park and booking a rental car. After a late lunch, we drove to the Cavendish Square Shopping Centre where we bought a Lonely Planet for East Africa and some new sandals for Suzie.
On Friday morning we tidied up and moved our stuff out of Paul and Robyn's room. We had organised to cook dinner for Paul, Robyn and the children and Martin (Robyn's brother) and his wife and children so we had to go shopping for the ingredients for dinner. We spent most of the afternoon cooking up an Indian feast. Dinner was a real hit – everyone seemed to enjoy the food and we had lots of laughs. It was a late bed time as Ghana vs Uruguay went into extra time and then penalties after the infamous hand ball off the line by Uruguay and then Ghana missed the penalty and lost on shoot out. Africa was out of the World Cup.
After lunch on Saturday we went to the train station to catch a train to the city to do the fan walk. All the trains going past were full so we chatted happily on the platform before we activated plan B and drove into town as far as we could, parking close to the Castle of Good Hope. We walked from there through town with the colourful crowds jam packed and vuvuzelas going off everywhere. After a good walk we wandered back to the train station and caught a train back to Mowbray. The train was incredibly crowded and a boy in our group lost R100 when his pocket was picked on the train. We went to Keith's Aunt Neva's house for dinner before going on to Ally and Ann's (Robyn's parents) house where we were staying for our remaining time in Cape Town.
On Sunday morning we drove to Cape Point National Park stopping to take a photo of the cast iron lighthouse at Slangkop. We got into the park and did the Circular Drive down to Gifkommetjie with beautiful views of the coast line and kelp seaweed beds. We drove to the visitor information centre and saw whale bones and an excellent stuffed bird collection as well as the history of shipwrecks off the cape. We drove to Cape Point and climbed up to the small lighthouse with magnificent views of the cormorants on the cliffs, Bellows Reef, and the Cape of Good Hope. We stopped at the cafe and had sandwiches and saw a striped mouse. We left and saw ostrich on the way to the Cape of Good Hope which we climbed as well. We saw a lot of fat dassies and dried kelp on the beach and then saw some baboons on the drive back to the Visitor Centre where we stopped as we had seen a couple of eland nearby. We walked as close as we could and took some photos before leaving very happy. We drove to Simonstown seeing some more baboons on the way and stopped at Seaforth to see penguins. We found some mothers and juveniles under bushes and saw good African artefacts at a craft market at the boulevard.
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