March 4

March 4

We were picked up by Richard, our tour guide with the Hylton Ross Touring company, at our guest house for an all day tour around Cape Town and down the coastline.  It was perfect weather, although very hot and sunny but that led to some beautiful clear views.  Our first stop was at Clifton Beach, although we only stopped briefly to admire the view and take some photos.  Clifton is made up of a series of beaches, appropriately named Clifton First, Clifton Second, Clifton Third, etc.  From there we continued to travel down the coastline to Camps Bay and on to Hout Bay and the harbour.  From there we could either wander around the local market or take a boat ride to Seal Island, we opted for Seal Island.  We were loaded onto the Calypso and headed out of the marina for about a 20 minute boat ride.  We knew we were getting close when the not so pleasant aroma of thousands of seals on one tiny little rock filled our nasal passages.  The smell was soon shadowed by the awe of thousands of seals on one tiny little rock.  They are the Cape Fur Seals and why they chose to inhabit that particular rock is not known for sure, but they stay there to live and to breed and play in the waves that crash on the rock.  The whole island is covered in seals!  

    

We then continued along the coast and on to penguins.  Again another one of these phenomenons as to why hundreds and hundreds of African Penguins (also called Jackass Penguins) decided to choose Boulders Beach as their own.  The penguins are nesting now and as such they brave the 35+ degree heat in the sand, devoted to the protection of their egg.  Unlike the penguins of the frozen north who are adapted to extreme cold, the African Penguins are adapted to the heat.  Still, the game wardens spray the penguins with water on very hot days to keep them from overheating.  These penguins also burrow down into the sand to keep cool and will seek shade under brush, etc.  But when they are nesting, they are only concerned about their egg.  They are the cutest little things!

We then traveled through the Cape Point Nature Reserve and stopped at the Cape of Good Hope for a photo.  It is the south-westerly most point of the African continent.  Not much to do there but take a picture to say you were there . . .Next, Cape Point where we had lunch and hiked up to the lighthouse on the point.  It was 35 degrees and the wind was hot which made it a bit of a challenging hike, but nothing a couple of bottles of water and a lot of stops to “admire the view” couldn’t overcome.  The views on all sides from the point were well worth the hike.  

Our final stop was at Kirstenbosch Gardens, a botanical garden full of all kinds of indigenous flora.  It is acclaimed as one of the great botanical gardens of the world.  We walked through the gardens, checked out an art display and had a nice drink of iced tea before climbing back into the tour van and heading back into Cape Town.  We were dropped of at the Waterfront, had a bite to eat and then walked back to the guest house for the night.