Friday, August 16, 2019
We woke up in Cape Town this morning, had breakfast at the hotel, and packed up to leave. Howie from Howie’s Transport was there at 9 am to take us out for the day. Our ultimate destination would be Cape Point National Park, but we would make some stops along the way.
Our first stop was in Camps Bay, not far outside of the city.
We got out to walk the beach and scramble through some tide pools. This was a very pretty seaside section of the city that reminded us of Malibu, only with mountains visible right behind it.
The Twelve Apostles are a dramatic backdrop to the white sand beach.
Next we stopped in Hout Bay, and took a walk along the wharf. There were lots of seals (or perhaps they were sea lions) in the water here, and a craft market set up along the pier.
We stopped again at Chapman’s Peak.
There are some stairs to several lookout points here, and the Bay is incredibly scenic from this angle. This also signals the start of Chapman’s Peak Drive, which is a toll road with many bends and several semi-tunnels.
Finally, we made it to the park. We grabbed our lunch from the Two Oceans Restaurant takeout window, and ate it on the terrace. There was no sign of the menacing baboons we had been warned about, but we were subjected to the aggressions of some local birds who attempted to snatch my sandwich out of my hand.
Next, we hiked up to the lighthouse at Cape Point. The scenery was again stunning and we couldn’t have asked for better weather: 20 C and very little wind, with mostly sunny skies.
We returned from that hike to the main parking area, took a quick breather, and then set out for the 45 minute hike to the Cape of Good Hope. It’s another lovely scenic trail that follows the top of a cliff out to the Cape, and passes some secluded beaches down below. There were not many hikers on the trail, and we enjoyed the seclusion. All was well until we crested the final hill and saw the Cape and its signpost below us… along with dozens of parked cars and tour buses, and a huge line of people waiting to snap their photo with the sign.
So much for having the place to ourselves!
Howie met us in the car park there, and we started the drive out of the park. Along the way, we finally started spotting some ostriches.
It was a short drive up to the Boulders Beach Lodge, where we are staying for 2 nights.
We had just enough time to get checked in and drop our bags, and get out to the beach with about an hour of daylight left. We were so excited to go find a penguin, and we did eventually start spotting them – one penguin here, two penguins there – though they were mostly few and far between.
We followed the beachfront path all the way down to the golf course, but after a long stretch without any more penguins, we figured that we’d come to the end of their colonized area.
We turned back to the hotel, as it was now getting dark, and to our surprise and delight, there were now penguins all over the place, as they seemed to be coming up from the water to roost for the night. The very trail we had just followed now had penguins criss-crossing it, and the shy penguins who’d run away when we approached earlier on were now replaced with penguins who were very much accustomed to people and couldn’t care less that we were there – they just continued going about with their business. They were so entertaining and fun to watch, and we stayed out far past the point of it being too dark to take a photo just to continue watching them. We also scoped out the entrance to the protected beach for the morning.
We returned to the lodge and had dinner in the dining room there – local fish and chips for 3 of us (pasta for Mallory) and finished it off with a malva pudding for dessert – a South African specialty that was simply amazing!
Cook Family Travels 