Cape Town, South Africa (17th December – 25th December 2016)
Now the dream is over, I guess it’s time to write down about it before I forget what I dreamt!
Trip to Cape has been one of the best holidays I
ever had so far. Amazing landscapes and beaches, beautiful drives, great
weather and wines, I suppose Cape Town has got everything you ask for ! And with the value of Rand against Pound being too low at the moment, it’s an heaven for holidayers!
Our first day started with an 6AM
flight from London to Cape Town with connection via AMS with an hour
stopover (flight got delayed by 50 minutes at Heathrow and we almost
missed our connecting flight but in the end we made it, we just
had to run super-fast from one end of the airport to another to get
onto our connecting flight! I suppose lazy people like me can only run in such
circumstances!)
Anyway first day in Cape Town was pretty much about
getting to our hotel late evening , having dinner and sleeping. Must
say our hotel in Sea point (http://www.newkingshotel.co.za/)was a great Atlantic Ocean facing location
with a super market and loads of good restaurants
around. The hotel staff was super friendly and helping. But if you want
to be more closer to pubs, restaurants and shopping, then V&A
waterfront area is the best place to stay in.
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| V&A waterfront |
Day 2: We planned all we wanted to do during
the week and made the bookings in fast half of the day through our
hotel (that included doing trip to Table mountain on Monday, Muizenberg/Boulders Beach/Cape of Good hope/Camps Bay/Chapman’s
peak etc. on Tuesday, Day safari trip on Wednesday, keeping Thursday easy and free, Friday Robben Island and Saturday Horse riding on Long Beach and sky diving in Cape. Sunday we had our mid-afternoon flight to Mauritius so booking the transfers for that too).
Since we had been warned thousand times by our SA
colleagues not to go on our own, we decided to book the whole week
itinerary and dedicated taxi from the hotel which turned out to be
really great (although for short rides, Uber is also a good
option and is really cheap). Our driver, Nazmi, was a really nice guy (contact details of Nazmi:+27 74713 5982 in case if you are in Cape and need a driver!! Very reliable person, also provided the best prices
for all transfers and made some of our trip bookings too!)
We spent the second part of the day exploring Sea
point, Green point and V&A waterfront area. It is the perfect place
to stroll or jog alongside the Ocean.
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| Outside of V&A Waterfront |
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| Coffee with Table Mountain in view! |
Day 3: One mistake we did was not booking
the Table mountain and Robben Island tickets online (I guess it was our
misunderstanding that hotel staff has reserved our tickets too but all
they had done is to arrange our time with the
driver) so we had to stand in queues to pick up the tickets. We first
went to V&A waterfront to pick up Robben Island tickets and then to Table
Mountain. That took us about 2 hours in total by the time we got on top
of the mountain (queue for buying tickets, queue
for lifts to go up to cable car platform and then queue for cable car
etc. etc…blah!)
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| Table Mountain covered in thick clouds |
When we got up to Table Mountain, it was completely
submerged in thick clouds, I was so bummed after all that hassles, we
can’t see a thing from the mountain. We were in such a huge dilemma
whether to wait for clouds to clear or go back
as everyone in the staff we asked , they said its doubtful clouds will
clear out. So about an hour debate when we were just about to leave, we
met Manohar Uncle and Nalini Aunty who were also waiting in the café
lounge for clouds to clear. I am glad we met
them as they totally convinced us to wait by saying if we don’t have
other plans for the evening then why not wait. In the end we waited for 4
more hours for sunshine to come out but that gave us a good time to get to
know and hear Manohar Uncle’s month travel
time in South Africa!
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| Manohar Uncle & Nalini Aunty |
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| Views of the cape from Table Mountain |
The views from Table Mountain were absolutely breathless and it was all worth of 5 hours wait! (Attaching some pictures here:!)
By the time we got done with Table Mountain, we
were super tired so the evening was about having easy dinner - drinks
and an early night!
Day 4: Weather was great and we started our day at
9.30 AM.
First stop was at Muizenberg which is on Indian Ocean side, surfers
paradise and have the beautiful colourful huts (shown in lot of
Bollywood movies!. I guess we both were
the most overdressed people on the beach, but hey we were out on a day
tour and not relaxing on beach!). Second stop was at Boulders Beach, the
colony for tiny cute African penguins which settled here in 1982 (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulders_Beach).
The beach has thousands of these little penguins and it was exciting to
see them from such close proximity as we both had not seen penguins
before in their natural habitat (Entry tickets for beach varies between
50-70 Rand subject to peak tourist times and
can be bought at the gate
- http://www.capepointroute.co.za/moreinfoOther.php?aID=110).
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| Muizenberg colourful wooden huts |
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| Boulders Beach of African Penguins |
Next stop was Cape of Good Hope (entry charges are Rand 135 per person-
http://capepoint.co.za/visitor-info/opening-times/)
which used to be considered as the southern tip-point of
African continent. It was believed that it is the dividing point between
Atlantic and Indian Ocean but that is not true as the southernmost
point is Cape Agulhas, about 150kms to the east-southeast
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_of_Good_Hope). But still the views are amazing when you go up to the lighthouse on
the top of the mountain. You can either walk up to the Lighthouse or
take a Funicular which costs roughly 50-75 Rand for return (subject to
touristy peak time price changes). The walk from Lighthouse to Cape of good
hope point is about an hour return but cars
also go up to this point. Since Cape of Good Hope is also a national
park, it is very much possible to spot wild life in the park.
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| Lighthouse at Cape of Good Hope |
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| Views from Lighthouse |
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| Ostrich farm on our way |
After Cape, we drove along the coast on Atlantic
Ocean side to stop on the way to see the views from Chapman’s peak
(there is toll after crossing Chapman’s peak which cost about Rand 42
for mid-size vehicles), Long beach and at Camps Bay
to see full sight of 12 Apostles. Although it doesn’t matter which side
of cape you drive, whether coastal drives or inlands, the
landscapes and views are so mesmerizing. The day was long by the time we
got back late to the hotel but it was hard to shake
out the views from the head!
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| Views from Chapman's Peak |
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| Sight of 12 Apostles from Camps Bay |
Day 5: Nazmi had reserved our Aquila safari slot for 3pm
so he picked us around midday since its about 2 hour 15 minutes journey
from Sea point (roughly 200kms one way). Another mistake we did is not
to book an overnight stay at
the safari place because it just reminded of village kind of stay in my dad’s birthplace village except more luxurious! when you have
peacocks n other birds etc. roaming around you and a huge nature park
sight!
Our safari trip was supposed to be 2 hour 30 minutes but it turned out to be bit more eventful when the Jeep’s tyre got flat within 20 minutes
of driving inside the safari park very close to about 7-8 Rhinoceros
and 20 Zebras hanging around
the Jeep! It took the safari team about 20-25 minutes to send another
jeep which just gave us all a perfect time to see lots of other animals
passing by! We saw small and big bucks, Ostrich pair, an elephant pair,
lots of different birds. We stopped for our
drinks break for 15 minutes before going to see Lions !!
We met a big family from the US who were quite
funny and a couple from Cape Town (who owned farms nearby the safari) on
the Trip. South African couple told us a lot about the animals they
have on their farms!
Drive back to Cape felt long but again very beautiful and on the way we stopped at vineyards in Stellenbosch!
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| Our Safari kafila! |
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| Stellenbosch Vineyards |
Day 6: It was a day to relax, eat sleep and chill out!
Day 7: This day started with heavy rainfall
and winds. So we went bit early to V&A waterfront (even though our
Robben Island Tour slot was booked for 3-7pm)
to confirm if they are still doing the trips to Robben Island.
Unfortunately
because the ocean was very choppy and the forecast was of strong winds
whole day, all trips for the day were cancelled. The next available slot
for the tour was 10 days ahead so we took the refund on our trip. Since
it was raining and nothing else we could
have done, we ended up spending money on shopping (after all girls can
never have enough clothes..tch tch!!) eating and drinking!
Day 8: Nazmi picked us at 11AM
to drive us to Long Beach where our 2 hour Horse Riding was booked. But
before that he gave me the bad news that since it’s still very windy, all sky diving trips have been cancelled for the day :-(. I was bit gutted about it
as this is the second time I had planned for sky diving and
couldn’t do it because of the weather. Hey ho, drive to Long beach took
us about hour and a quarter. My Horse’s name was
Solo and Sumedha’s horse was Puma!! Our coach riders Christina and
Kerry were such good riders and really helpful girls. I would totally
recommend doing this activity as it’s a complete different experience of
riding a horse on a white sandy beach along the
ocean with high waves!!
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| Most Beautiful Coastal Drives |
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| Long Beach! |
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| Riders! |
On way we stopped by Bocap area (area with colourful houses) and the bottom parking lot of Table mountain to get some more spectacular views. Evening went in going to our favourite Indian restaurant nearby and packing!
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| Bocap |
Day 9: Last Christmas
Breakfast in Cape Town started on a good note when we both got rings as a gift in our Christmas crackers…..hehehe….. We both wore our respective rings for the
next 2 days!……oh well we got something to keep us making pranks and
laughing for next couple of days !
Nazmi dropped us at the airport for our 1.30PM flight to Mauritius.
Stay in Cape Town was amazing, something to
cherish for long! Although a week is a too short stay as there are so
many other things to do. I know now what other set of things to do in
the next visit
which includes – Cage Diving with Sharks in Gansbaai (about 2 hour 30
minutes’ drive from Cape) and on way do whales spotting in Hermanus – a
must do thing; an hour chopper ride over Cape town (which starts from
V&A waterfront and does a whole loop over Fish
Hoek, Cape of Good Hope, Camps bay and back); sky diving and Robben Island (which I
couldn’t do on this trip!) and basically drink more of South African
wines!
