Day Forty Five

Day 45: Cape Town 

Today Alan picked us up early and we started our journey to Cape Point. It is around a hour and a half drive from where we were staying. We first drove past Simon's Town.

Simon's Town is a town near Cape Town which is home to the South Africa Navy. It is located on the shores of False Bay, on the eastern side of the Cape Peninsula. For more than two centuries it has been an important naval base and harbour (first for the Royal Navy and now the South African Navy). 

We had to pay 110 Rand each to get into the national park. We drove past False Bay which is were locals live by the ocean. The houses were huge and had amazing views. It would have been a treck to get up and down to the water though.

We first headed to the cape point lighthouse. We obviously beat the crowed because us and maybe 4 other people were climbing up to the lighthouse. Apparently Alan told us that in the summer time you would have to queue to get into the car park near the lighthouse. There was a viewing point at the top of the lighthouse. The view was incredible you could see a birds eye view to cape point. 

We then drove from the lighthouse down to cape point. There were thousands of birds sitting on the rocks. We climbed up the rocks a little bit just to get a higher view of the beach. It was incredible!! At the beginning there was only Alan's car in the car park but then another couple came. We are so lucky with how quiet everything was.

Cape Point:

Cape Point is at the southeast corner of the Cape Peninsula, which is a mountainous and scenic landform that runs north-south for about thirty kilometres. 

Platboom Beach:

Wild and unspoilt, Platboom Beach is a magical place. It’s easy to spend the entire day picnicking, walking and exploring the coastline. Pretty dunes separate the parking area from the long sandy beach. Birdlife is prolific and terns, gulls, kiewiete and sandpipers are often seen. A peaty stream flows down to the beach. Swimming here is at your own risk – it's not dangerous but there are no lifeguards.

Buffels Bay:

Buffels Bay in Cape Point Nature Reserve is a very popular braai and picnic spot. Beautifully situated, the beach and tidal pool overlooks False Bay and you can’t get closer to the tip of Cape Point. 

Olifantsbos Beach:

Olifantsbos is a small, sandy beach and rocky point on the western side of the Cape Point Nature Reserve. It’s a magical place, wild and sometimes windswept, with a number of well-marked hiking trails and short beach walks. The beautiful Shipwreck Trail and Sirkelsvlei Walk start and finish here. When the Southeast wind blows and there’s a west to southwest swell, surfers come to ride the right point-break on the incoming tide. Olifantsbos is a popular picnic spot offering green lawn, ablution facilities and ample parking. One of the most amazing places to stay in Cape Town is Olifantsbos Guest House, a self-catering cottage situated right on the beach just south of Olifantsbosbaai. Wake up to the crash of the waves and eland grazing nearby in this unique getaway.

Boulders Beach:

Boulders Beach, which is part of the Table Mountain National Park, is home to a sizeable colony of African penguins. These cute and comical birds waddle around quite unperturbed by the hordes of tourists who flock towards them. Huge boulders create sheltered little coves and the resident penguins often swim past for a look at the people. Boulders is the most fabulous swimming beach in Cape Town. A swim in the calm, warm waters of Boulders Beach is always fun on a hot summer day but – you never know – you may just see a sleek black and white penguin swimming past. You can also do a fun paddling trip past the penguin hangout. Of all Cape Town beaches, Boulders Beach is one of the most popular spots for kids and an absolute haven for toddlers. It’s safe, and you can relax without having to watch out for unpredictable waves while pipsqueak splashes around or totters after penguins. It is the most sheltered beach on the False Bay side when the South East wind blows. Boulders Beach is a pay beach in season so remember to take your Wild Card if you have one.

We left boulders bay at 3. Then we went to two different site seeing places we drove up a mountain to get a higher viewing point of the ..... Beach. It was amazing! You could see the waves rolling it and people playing sorts on the beach. You can also see rows of homes. Alan said that this place used to be where people would retire or have a family. 

We then drive down the mountain to another viewing point which you could see the entire cape plank. It looked so flat you could see mountains in the background, the water in the right hand side of mountains and then buildings and houses throughout most of the space.

We then went straight to Table mountain. We got to table mountain just after 4pm. The line was horribly long. We still needed to buy the cable car tickets. They said that the last cable car was going up at 5 pm but there were to many people queued up that had tickets. Also it was the last day they were running the cable cars before they shut down for maintainance. We got our tickets and started lining into the ticket line and made it through the selected to go onto the cable cars at 4:30 and at 5:30 they decided to not let any other people go on. So around 100 people queuing behind us couldn't go on. Even the people who have brought tickets already! So we were very lucky getting through. 

We were still queuing up gradually moving the queue. At one stage we got in an lift and went to where the cable cars go from but when we got out of the lift there was even more of a queue up here! Everyone was pushing and shoving to get onto the cable car. We honestly thought that once we got up there that it would be a small queue. It was 6:30 when we got onto the cable car to head to table mountain. The cable car was so cool the floor spun 360 degrees so everyone had a good view. 

Once we got up the top of table mountain we just missed the sunset but it was stunning!!!

The queue to get down was even longer so andrew just took some photographs then stood in the queue again. While I went around took photographs. It was absolutely freezing and we had our warm jumpers on. I queued and waited for hot chocolates for around half an hour luckily it was indoors so I wasn't too cold while Andrew was queuing outside! Once I got to the queue it wasn't until 7:30 that we got onto the cable car to go back down. They tried to squeeze as many people in as possible and they played music while the floor spun again.

At least now we can say we saw table mountain next time we would definitely go in the morning to do it even to hike it would be nice. We just didn't have the weather to go up other than today all the other days it was shut. 

Today was amazing and to top it off we had an awesome guide Alan who stuck by us all day even while waiting for us the 4 hours we were stuck on table mountain. I was very pleaded with what we accomplished today as it was our last day in Cape Town. Tomorrow we head on a 2 hour drive down to Aquila game drive park to stay there for the once night. 

Xx.