Cape Town, South Africa is a Top Holiday Destination

When you finally get there ...!  The Tubblet's extended birth certificate arrived on Saturday morning so we went back to Heathrow.  Luckily we got a space on the 9 pm flight so off we went ...  

We stayed in Camps Bay, one of Cape Town's posher areas, "littered with expensive multi-story penthouses and designer apartments, only accessible via ultra-skinny roads, and all vying for the best sea views".  All the celebs and beautiful people have left as it's Winter.  This leaves the place free for the likes of us and means it's more affordable.  

Here's my highlights of our trip:

Cheetah Outreach

Cheetah Outreach works to protect cheetahs by working with farmers and local communities. They provide dogs to farmers to protect their livestock from predators to prevent them from shooting wild animals.  It works as most predators are lazy and won't argue with a dog.

Stroking a cheetah, very carefully, was a real privilege.  We also met Sebastian the meerkat.  Sebastian didn't try and sell us anything or offer us free cinema tickets, but he did hump Rev T's leg. 

City Sightseeing, Cape Town

The big red tourist bus!  Great way to see lots of the city all at once.  We did two routes - Red and Yellow.  The Red Route goes round the city centre and includes the District 6 Museum, St George's Cathedral and the Natural History Museum. The Yellow Route goes up Table Mountain and round the beach.

The Food

We ate like kings!  The food was amazing.  The diet has now started due to snugness of jeans. Calories count, even on holiday.  The Simple Wardrobe won't be much good if what I've got already doesn't fit!

Highlights were various restaurants on or just near Long Street:

• Tiger's Milk - Have the steak!  It comes with skinny chips with Parmesan grated over them.  It sounds wrong, but was so right!  

• Addis in Cape - We had the non-vegetarian set menu, followed by pudding and coffee.   This meant we got to try a bit of everything.  Everyone loved it apart from Tubblet who refused to touch it.  The meal was followed by a dash to KFC for emergency chicken nuggets and fries!\

• Mama Africa - Pan-African restaurant with the loudest - and best - African band we heard all holiday.

The Green Market

The place to go to pick up African crafts - batiks, artwork, bead-work, wooden and stone carvings, clothing - etc.  The market is near other shops, restaurants and cafes.  

Robben Island

The 3.5 hour-long tour starts with a half-hour ferry ride and then you're guided through the maximum security prison, usually by former political prisoners.  

If you're going to go, it's worth going sooner rather than later as the living history will soon be gone. Much of the tour depends on the guides and our two were excellent.  The first talks you though the Island's history as a mental hospital, military base and leper colony.  The second walks you through the prison itself, talking about the conditions, pointing out their cell and Mandela's.  (Ours was indignant that he couldn't show us his cell as one of the other guides was in it).

Our second guide, whose name sadly I didn't catch, was keen to remind us that it wasn't just the Mandela's and Biko's who fought for freedom.  He named people who'd campaigned quietly for years and friends of his who'd died in detention that he didn't want forgotten.  All had made the tree of freedom grow and flower. Humbling and sobering.

The only frustrating thing was that the timing on the tour was very tight.  Both shops were closed by the time our tour finished.  Poor Rev T, the only thing he wanted was a Mandela t-shirt!

Sabona Wildlife Reserve

Our guide, Alwin, shared the history of the reserve and found as many animals as he could whilst driving the land-rover in a manner that would make Jeremy Clarkson proud!  We saw white lions, giraffes, rhinos, zebras, an ant eater, jackals, various deer and random birds.  Sadly, no hippos or elephants.  Amazing to see the animals in their natural environment.  And sad to think that, due to hunting and loss of habitat, some of them will soon be gone.

Tony, our driver

We hired a car and a driver for the trip.  Tony was brilliant.  As well as being an excellent driver, he knew the area really well.  Some of the great restaurants and places to go we only found because of him.  He is excellent and I totally recommend him.

I'll put some more photos on Instagram shortly and there will be more Sunday photos.  Just not all of them!  (Took over 300 between just me and Rev T).

We missed Table Mountain, as they'd closed the cable car to do winter repairs by the time we'd got there.  This was a bit of a relief to me as Rev T had spent the last few weeks reminding of various films where cable cars featured, "Do you remember that bit in Where Eagles Dare ...?"  

Others in the group enjoyed the wine tour; the scenic drive around the lighthouses on the Cape, including the Penguin Beach, and a visit to a Township.

Anyone else been to Cape Town?  Got any suggestions for places to got for our return trip?

Thank you to everyone who commented and shared this post about the problems we had getting there.  We haven't heard anything further from Expedia.  Their website is unchanged.

Even on the journey back, the problems kept on coming! Although our departure date changed, the return flights were unaffected.  When we went to check in for the return flight, Rev T showed the paperwork for the amended flights that Expedia had sent and the airline couldn't find us.  Expedia hadn't linked all the flight bookings together.  The reference number we needed to fly was on the very first email.  Fortunately Rev T had kept it.

Back to a big pile of washing, a tube strike and business as usual.  Posts on surviving a large group holiday without ending up on a charge and some advice on what to pack etc to follow.

Hope you're all well and having a great summer!

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