We
woke this morning to find that …. it was yet another wet and cloudy
day! We seem destined not to see Cape Town in anything other than a
foggy state which is frustrating because we know that tantalising
views are waiting for us both of Table Mountain and from the top of
Table Mountain. We drove up through town to see if by any chance the
cable car up the mountain was running. Half of the mountain was
shrouded in deep thick clouds and not surprisingly the cable car
wasn’t running. We opted for plan B and decided to drive down the
peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope.
Leaving the centre of Cape Town along the beach road we passed
block after block of holiday apartments. It reminded us both of
Punta del Este in Uruguay. At this time of year the whole area had
an almost soulless and empty feel to it but you can imagine that in
summer it is full and bustling with people all making the most of
their few days by the sea. A little further on the blocks of flats
gave way to more typical seaside villages with large houses dotted
up the hillsides competing with each for good sea views.
We worked our way down and through Camps Bay which not only
has great sea views but also has a small and lovely sandy bay. It
looked like a very pretty village and is apparently one of the
better places to have your holiday home. From here the road followed
the coastline winding down to Hout Bay. The clouds hovered in the
sky, hugging the mountains and shielding their peaks from view. At
Hout Bay we ended up doing an unplanned detour (bad navigation by
me!) into the town itself rather than carrying on further south.
Hour Bay is dominated by its harbour. Beyond it there are what
looks like a few fish processing plants and beyond those smaller
houses which are probably home to the fishermen. The bay itself is
really beautiful. It’s set back a kilometre or two from the main
coastline so it provides what looks like a sheltered natural harbour
for vessels big and small. Alongside the fishing boats many of Hout
Bay’s more affluent residents had moored their yachts.
Still a long way from home
The harbour was also home to a few different companies
offering glass bottomed boat trips to tourists. A couple of coaches
had arrived and unloaded their cargo of camera snapping tourists. I
wish we could have met some after their trip to see what it was
like, more than anything because it was still peeing down with rain.
The local traders for the tourists had their wares lined up on the
docks covered over in huge sheets of plastic. All would have been
quiet without them as there was no sign at all of any fish being
bought and sold.
We turned back and headed through the other side of Hout Bay
where the large houses of the more affluent section of society line
the road hugging the coast. It is a large bay and as with Camps Bay
it has what looks like a lovely sandy beach. Again I would imagine
that during the summer months the whole area takes on a different
feel as it gets packed with South Africans on holiday.
Leaving Hout Bay we continued on along the coastline driving
along Chapman’s Peak Road. It’s a toll road and obviously one that
gets closed in high winds or very bad weather but the views from it
are fabulous. Built by Italian prisoners of war in WW11 it is now a
popular scenic drive or cycle ride for those with very strong leg
muscles. Picnic spots and lay-bys have been carved out along the way
so that you can simply stop to enjoy the view for a while and it’s a
pretty amazing view to enjoy.
Driving along Chapman’s Peak is a bit like driving along Big
Sur in California, although it’s a lot shorter. The ocean dominates
your view to the right with an amazing array of colours while to
your left mountains rise up to the clouds. Each time the coastline
headed inwards, a sandy bay ringed the shore and a village had been
established behind it. Out to sea the tell tale signs of this
difficult stretch of coastline could be seen as waves crashed over
rocks still submerged by the tide.
Kommetje came and went as did Scarborough and soon we were in
the Cape Hope national park. The landscape here was suddenly
different from the rest of the cape. For one thing there were no
houses in sight so it was probably a better reflection of what the
rest of the cape may have looked like. There were no manicured lawns
or tall palm trees, here it was mainly low lying bushes and grasses.
The road through the park has a few different trails that you can
follow, either taking you to places where you can spend the night or
to different bays and coves on the waterfront. We simply headed
straight down as far as the road would go.
The car park confirmed that this is a big tourist destination.
Several coaches were parked up as well as one of the infamous Baz
Bus buses. These provide a cheap and easy way of getting around
South Africa’s destinations for those travelling on a budget and are
a Lonely Planet staple form of transport. We took the quick route to
the top of the peak travelling on the Flying Dutchman, not an ill
fated vessel that haunts the seas but a small funicular railway. At
the top a short flight of steps takes you up to the original Cape
Hope lighthouse. Its small compared to many we’ve seen and was
ultimately decommissioned and replaced by one lower down the slopes
as it was shrouded by clouds too many days of the year and therefore
wasn’t particularly effective.
From here you could see the different currents of the sea
working their way around the peninsula. Bearing in mind that this is
the same body of water that we have around the British Isles it was
incredibly clear. Where there was no seaweed the water was a deep
aqua marine colour broken up only by the sand being churned up along
the bottom. A couple of dassies were happily munching away seemingly
oblivious to the interest they were creating among the camera toting
tourists above then. A signpost told us that we are now only 9,623km
away from London, the closest we have been in a while.
A couple of dolphins were playing about in the cool waters
below us but unfortunately moved too fast for us to get a couple of
snaps to keep. We watched the skies change out to sea, getting ever
darker with just a few small patches of light coming through. A
couple of small boats had been out looking at the Bellows Rock just
off the coastline, a particularly treacherous bunch of rocks that
had been the cause of several ship wrecks in the area. The boats had
turned about and were heading back to shore moving pretty fast and
managing to keep ahead of the storm that was working its way towards
us.
With rain imminent we headed back down to the shelter of the
café to sit and watch and wait it out. You could see how the wind
was gusting along from the way it whipped up the surface of the
water. What had been relatively calm waters when we arrived were now
covered in white caps of foam with the rain moving in as a grey
downpour as we watched. A couple of baboons were also a source of
entertainment. They were hunting for food and were getting pretty
hacked off that the people running the restaurant had shut the doors
so they couldn’t get in, something they do when they can. They
prowled up and down looking for a way in and rattling the doors but
to no avail.
Between June and November people also come down to the cape to
watch the whales go by on their annual migration. I’d hoped that we
might be lucky to get to see one and we were! Out in the bay I saw a
smooth a graceful curving coming up and out of the water and pointed
it out to Stef who confirmed that it wasn’t just me going mad. We
both agreed it was too big to be a dolphin so it had to be a whale.
We had a friendly waitress who served us and told her we’d seen a
whale. She was dubious because at this time of year they usually
stay further out to sea so that they don’t get washed into the rocks
which are sharp. But she saw it too and then pointed it out to one
of the tour guides who jumped up and down like an excited little boy
when he saw it as well.
Penguin family at Simonstown
We left the cape and started to work our way back up to Cape
Town this time driving up the east coast of the peninsula. On our
way out of the park Stef spotted some Cape Mountain Zebra which only
occur in small numbers so they are pretty rare. There was also a
hartebeest, either a red one or a Lichtenstein’s one. They don’t
occur in this area naturally so it must have been introduced but it
was also a rare spotting.
As we came up to Simonstown we saw the signs for the Boulders
penguin colony and stopped off to have a look, making it with just
half and hour to go before closing which was more than enough time.
A boardwalk takes you out over the sand dunes and within seconds you
get your first sighting of an African penguin. They have longer legs
than others I’ve seen so don’t look quite so comical when they walk.
There were a few lone individuals on the dunes but most were on a
small sandy bay all congregated together. Young penguins were being
groomed by their parents and you could see patches where their adult
coat had come through replacing their baby fluffiness. Others were
tucked away warmly on their nests being shielded from the cold wind
by their parents. Quite a cacophony of sound accompanied the sight
and it was a small detour that had definitely been worth making.
We carried on from here back up towards Cape Town hitting busy
roads as it was by then rush hour on Friday night. We’d expected
pretty much all of the traffic to be heading out of town but it was
not so. The downside was that we’d decided to see if we could get
back to the waterfront to make it for the 6:00pm showing of the Da
Vinci Code. The minutes slipped away from us and we got there
probably in time to just slip in as the film started but the seats
were all sold out. Ah well, we’d rushed back for nothing but we
booked seats for tomorrow instead.
Not yet ready to head back to our little pad we went for a
quick drink in a bar on the harbour, grateful to be sitting next to
the wood fire they had burning. Back at our loft we cooked a very
tasty curry and watched the King Kong DVD we’d bought as consolation
for not getting to the pictures. Or at least Stef watched the film;
I nodded off part way through so nothing’s changed there then!
