Friday 15th June – Cape Town
After a lovely nights sleep it was up and into action.
Breakfast was great, sitting in the sun looking at the ocean, Lions Head and Table Mountain. The fog was gone by the time we got up so we didn’t see the ‘table cloth’ on the mountain.
The drive to the cable car station was stunning. Table Mountain is a massive mountain slapped just in from the sea. It’s 1100 m high – virtually straight up! With a flat top. Its 3 kilometres long and the rise would only be about 10 meters from the highest to the lowest points. You drive about half way up then catch the cable car. It goes up for 1200m on a 45 degree angle.
The whole mountain just looks time a gigantic stone block – it’s made of sandstone that has a grey crust over it. When the edge is broken you see the glorious orange colour in the stone. It is far more resistant to erosion than normal sandstone. 
Where you get to the top you are blown away by the amazing environment up there. On a world map, showing the different eco-systems for the world, there is a tiny little one called Cape region , just covering this tiny area. There are 2200 species of plants on Table Mountain – that’s more than in the whole UK! We saw lots of birds and lizards but no mammals. Except for a collie if you want to get technical.There was also a Soccer ball vending machine. Just what you need on top of a mountain! We presume it is still there from the World Cup last year. 
Robin Island, off Cape Town. Nelson Mandela’s home for a long time.
We then made our way back down to the Waterfront district. Like most modern cities on the coast, Cape Town has a stunning waterfront. Buskers, heaps of people trying to sell their tourist junk, beggers, street people, tourists and locals. We went to a lovely Belgium Beer Bar and had a coffee. Well, Sarah had coffee and was happy. Raina had a Belgium Berry Beer. Yum. It tasted more like fruit juice then beer and was very refreshing – but also like a fruity cocktail. Lovely mix.
As we sat at the table, watching the world, we saw our first “African kill”. Right in front of us a water bird caught a good sized fish and had lunch!
Cape Town has a giant Coke Man. It looks like a massive Lego construction but is actually made of coke pallets. It was Coke’s modern art display for the World Cup. It really is cool, so has been left there.
We wandered around the status of the four World Peace price winners and were inspired buy such words as Nelson Mandela’s “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.”
My hero!
We drove around a variety of suburbs, from the very rich to the not so rich. The houses are so beautiful. The water view, rich houses were stunning. Great big rendered houses with huge windows, yuppie balconies and razor wire.
The not so affluent areas where rows of terrace houses, all painted in different bright colours and in various states of repair. Not so mu ch razor wire – just bars. It was so pretty.
Next was a drive down the coast to the town of Hout – at the bottom of the Cape, rumoured to have the best seafood in town.
We had a Seafood platter – salmon and other fish, squid, tiger prawns, salad and a full – big – cray. It fed three of us. And with soft drinks and coffee cost 500 ZAR – about $60.
An Awesome day in Cape Town
16th June – Cape Town to Mossel Bay
We woke up and got our stuff together, had the B&B breakfast and hit the road.
Our first stop was a gorgeous peninsular where Wynand and Sarah walked far out on to the rocks and explored the rock pools and rock formations. We all had a great time taking photos and (for Sarah) posing like an explorer atop mountainous peaks. The rocks were strewn with bull kelp that had washed up and was in various states of drying up.
Wynand picked up a piece of fresh stuff and wiped out his pocket knife quick as a flash and sliced it in half. It might sound mundane and inconsequential but the texture of the inside really was fascinating.
We left there to get back on the road. On the road we actually saw a lot worth talking about such as the guys who stand on the freeway (albeit in a slow moving part) and sell their wares to the drivers. Everything from in-car phone chargers to wooden snakes to stuffed Smurfs and then fruit (presumably raided from the nearby orchards).
We also passed by a few squatter camps, these are the communities of people refugees/displaced people/disadvantaged people (it really is hard to explain) who live in shacks crammed together. These are, I guess, slums and really quite sad in that they are so close to Cape Town – a major and completely westernized city. The camps themselves are undeniable pretty in their rustic appeal and the use of color and graffiti and most of all the repetition though everything they stand for is the opposite. The shacks are made of bits and pieces, mostly tin, and are tiny little buildings surrounded by hung washing and fires. The camps are gigantic, they span on and on and just keep going – and these are small ones compared to say Sawato in Johanesberg.
The people from the squatter camps use the free way to walk on which presents a bit of a confronting problem. South Africa, apparently, is the only country in the world whose freeways are complete with ‘watch for pedestrian’ signs. The entire side of the road is lined with people, men, women and children. Some carrying water buckets to lug water home, carrying wood, some with things to sell and some with nothing just going about their business. The government had put up walking bridges over the freeway which most seemed to use, yet some still just cross apparently. Scary.
The next stop we made was in a very Dutch area at the southernmost point of Africa, the point where the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean meet. We stopped at the point and took some great photos of the ocean and the anchored boats, all in bright colors. We also had some lunch here – some calamari and mussels. The calamari was amazing.
Southern most point. There is Antarctica.
The landscape here is phenomenal. It’s a mix of all the best places in the world. As we drive by we will see a flash and think, wow that’s like Wales, or New Zealand, or central NSW, or the Snowy Mountains, of the Scottish Highlands, or the Braidwood area, of the South Coast, or Alaska, or Yorkshire, or India and sometimes a flash that looks just a bit like the classical Africa you see in all the documentaries. And yet all this comes together to make something completely unique and distinctly South Africa.
The mountains too are spectacular. No one told us about mountains in South Africa, but they are phenomenal.
From here we went on to Mossel Bay, along some more stunning landscape and seaside with a crakalackin’ sunset.
We made it to Mossel Bay and another stunning B&B, we skipped dinner, well and truly full from our massive breakfast, calamari lunch and a brief ice cream and chocolate pig out at a rest stop. We hung out in the common room, had a drink and Wynand and Sarah played a round of pool. Sarah’s move to avoid procrastination and pre-sink the eight ball was rejected by Wynand and so eventually the game swung in favour of him.
Another great day, with a lot of observing.
17th June – Mossel Bay to Durban
This idea Sarah puts down 100% to Wynand, ‘lets get up by 6am, go fishing on the beach and get some sunrise photos’. What on earth convinced Sarah – the spectacularly accomplished sleeper-inera – to go along on this folly is something one may never grasp.
At 7:15 when the sun was still not up and a line not in the sea (due to the inability to see) a decision was made to give up and go have some breakfast, where we discovered from the hotel employee setting up for early breakfast that the sun does not rise till about 7:30 in the Southern Cape. Lol, damn.
But in all seriousness, mornings will never actually kill her, no matter how much they feel like they will. And the early morning beach was nice.
The breakfast at this place was omg-extrodinar – best omelet ever.
From there we set of to go see us some Dassie (or Rock Hyrax). A small rodent like animal, that is actually a not too distant relative of the elephant. As excited as we both were for the big, exciting animals we will be seeing on safari, this is one of the animals Sarah in particular has been most excited to see.
We went to a point on the coast where Wynand was pretty sure we would see some. A great bonus for Sarah was that this point was also an extremely significant archaeological site. Home to the worlds oldest discovered shell middens (trash heaps) and thus the first evidence for sea food exploitation in the world, at 120,000years ago. Woooo. Big deal. It’s a gorgeous cave on the seaside with centuries of soot on the walls and roof.
But – I hear you asking – did we see any Dassie?
Did we ever? Yes we did! So many. The rocks right up to the water were absolutely swarming with them. At first they were quite hard to see because they look just like rocks. But as you look you can start to pick out one, then two, three, four, etc. the longer you look the more you see.
They were so damn cute! So so so cute. And then they start running, and the cuteness expands tenfold. They seem to have a very different morphology that makes them run in a very different way to say a mouse or other rodent. Each one is a fat little ball of a creature with its legs positioned very much under it, rather then on the sides of its body. The way they run, they fling their legs out in front of themselves and bound across the rocks with such grace and assurance of step. Their body shape does not seem suitable for gracefully bounding across the rocks, they are fat and round, with short legs and no tails. But their behaviour completely bellies the assumptions you could draw from their shape. 
In telling stories to Wynand about my propensity to touch wild animals (and as a result often be bitten by an astounding array of animals) and the necessity for rabies protection shots, there may have been a degree of doubt and skepticism. This was smashed when Sarah eventually encouraged a few to eat from her hand and even let her pat it. Winning!
From the dassie stop we set off towards an ostrich farm. It was easy to tell when we were getting close as we entered ostrich territory, passing tens of paddocks full of ostriches. We got to the farm and started with a tour of the farm, a short introductory video, a look at the food, eggs (which we got to stand on, real fresh eggs that are able to support the weight of a person without breaking).
The farm works by taking the eggs that the females lay and placing them in an incubator. This means that the ostrich keeps on laying until she has a full batch and the farmers get more. One female can lay up to 60 eggs in a season. The farm incubates 2,000 eggs at a time.
The ostriches are farmed for both feathers and meat. The feather trade, traditionally and still supports Carnival in Rio.
They brought one in to let us look at and see the anatomy etc. Out guide (Mats, an awesome dude) explained the plucking process and the handling tricks. To be handled the birds are blindfolded. They wacked a hood on one on the bird in question, and it was hysterical watching its reaction to the sun being turned off. The ostrich’s brain is smaller then one of its eyes, not making it a very bright bird, though it does have quite remarkable eyesight. So the poor thing really looked confused and unable to explain the sudden darkness.
Now for the best part. Sarah got to ride one! She was admittedly a little apprehensive about the prospect because ostriches really don’t look as though they have been suitable to be ridden (as horses are).
However after 5 seconds on the back having been told the proper riding position, leaning back with legs wrapped under the wings in front of the legs, she was loving it! They chased it around the yard for a couple of laps, Sarah giggling hysterically on its back. The movement is bizarre, kind of wobbly all over but remarkably smooth and comfortable.
Brilliant! She thinks she should ride them all the time.
Then after this fantastic ride we went and thanked the ostrich by eating its buddy. We had an ostrich steak and K-bab. It was delicious, a weird meat somewhere between chicken and beef. Something I would eat a lot of if it were available at home.
Along the drive Raina saw a cat running across the road just ahead, then had to reconsider her assumption as the shape was not quite right for a cat. IT WAS A MONKEY! On the side of the road it joined its two buddies. Sarah, in the back, tried her best to whip out the camera as we passed, but failed to get the lens cap off in time. So there are some lovely photos of a lens cap here.
Including the monkey a few very exciting things happened in a very short span of time. Another hundred meters on there was a broken down car with its entire engine block sitting on the road behind it. Next there was what appeared to be an entire family standing on the roadside of a car on the road. Next there was a hitchhiker signalling, and Wynand pointed out the other guy hiding in the bushes (possibly waiting to hijack any who stopped to pick him up??? re-enforces the ‘don’t pick up hitchhikers rule’.
We flew to Durbin where Wynand and Sarah developed a fabulous system for transporting our luggage. 😀
We toured our way from Durban to Jo’berg.
The top Gear guys were in town. We didn’t see them but we did have our feet chewed by the little fish.
Then a visit to a village.
The floors are treated with cow manure. It dries hard into a sealer. Bit stinky till it dries.
The Drakensberg Mountains were pretty amazing. They did look like a dragon lying on the ground. We also drove threw some beautiful little settlements.
Next tab – Ant’s Hill.
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