Doing the touristy thing...

I have lived in Cape Town all my life, and one of the things that we Capetonians tend to do is take our beautiful surroundings completely for granted. However, having kids you get to enjoy some of the things you never took time for... let me explain.

On the weekend we had absolutely glorious weather. Now my normal weekend routine would be shopping and groceries and maybe some gardening and movies. However this weekend I decided to pack the kids and show them some of the sites that I haven't been too since I was a kid myself. So off we headed to Simon's Town (a quaint little naval town). Our first stop was Boulders Beach to see the penguin colony... and believe it or not this is the first time in my (almost) 29 years that I have been there. Here we were joined by a busload of German tourists. Unfortunately it was a little windy, but when did that ever stop a determined mother :)

After our commune with the little birds in their tuxedo's we headed back into the town itself and took a nice long walk along the main road stopping at some quaint bakeries and antique shops and all the typical beachy/tourist traps. This was followed up by a delicious meal at Bertha's - hmmmm calamari and kingklip. Here we were joined by no less than 2 busloads of Japanese tourists.

From here we took a scenic drive over the mountain to Noordhoek and then around the famous Chapmans Peak. This is a particular road that I used to travel often... when I needed a break, just to get away look out at the ocean and just chill. Unfortunately the vegetation in this area was destroyed in a massive fire a few years back after which the road was closed for a long time due to dangerous rock falls. After various rehabilitation efforts and massive nets were erected to catch these boulders, the road was reopened as a toll road. This was the first time since then that I actually drove on this road again. And it is still one of the most beautiful drives to do in the world.

This takes you in to Hout Bay and here we were greated with the site of a pod of Southern Right Whales playing in the bay. So we pulled off the road into one of the picnic spots and just stood and watched them for ages. What spectacular creatures. Then into Hout Bay for the most incredible ice cream you ever did eat.

Now THAT was the way to spend 6 hours in Cape Town.

God I love this City

View of Table Mountain from Blauberg Beach... one of the most beautiful sites in the world.

Sunset from the same beach... who could ask for more.

Laid Back West Coast Attitude

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Originally uploaded by m_from_ct.

I have finally gotten around to scanning in my pictures from the expedition to Die Strandlooper last month which brought back good memories. Among them (the memories and the photos) was this one... how to tell the weather - West Coast Style. Attched to the sign there is a rope leading down to a rock... on the sign is the following:

West Coast Weather
If the rock is :-
DRY:- It's a nice day
WET:- It's raining
WHITE:- Snow
BLACK:- Night
GONE:- A bit of fog

Wonderful Womans Day

Today was Woman's Day here in the beautiful South Africa, and mine has been absolutely fantastic. Originally the plan was to spend the day shopping for odds and ends for the kids (daughter has grown out of all her winter clothes again) and possible take a few more cars for test drives. But then, when I viewed the weather report yesterday and realised that we would be in store for a glorious spring day I changed all my plans. So this morning, after breakfast, I grabbed my camera, packed the kids in the car and headed up the R27 (a.k.a. West Coast road - aptly named as it runs all the way up the western coast of the country) in search of the renowned spring flowers which are reportedly in bloom a month early due to the rain this year.

WOW... and double WOW. We ended up in a dorpie about 200km's outside of Cape Town called Dwarskersbos and the surrounding veld was just bathed in beautiful white and yellow and orange and mauve flowers. It really was beautiful. We did the mandatory photo snaps with kids and flowers, a little walkabout to stretch out the legs and then turned the car around to start heading back, with the intention of grabbing lunch on the way.

Now, one of the very well known restaurants (and I use that word lightly - you'll see why later) is just outside of Langebaan and is called Die Strandlooper (literally translated into The Beachwalker). This is where I decided to pull in at noon for lunch not truely realising what lay in store for us. To set the scene... Die Strandlooper is quite literally on the rocks by the beach... there is no building to speak of, instead the tables are made out of cement with wooden planks for benches, open fires in rock mounds are everywhere. The atmosphere is completely relaxed. And the food... oh the food... It is a set price for adults, children under 12 pay per height and the under 5's eat free.

We started off with fresh home made bread straight off the fire with fresh cooked mussels (plain or garlic) AWESOME... this was followed by braaied Harder (a type of fish) DELLICIOUS... then seafood paella MOUTH WATERING... then lamb stew (yup lamb... couldn't quite figure that one out) DELECATBLE... then braaied Snoek ALL TIME FAVOURITE... then Stompneus (Stumpnose) and smoked Angel Fish INCREDIBLE... and to top it all off Crayfish tails WOWWIE. And along with all of these the fresh bread and home made preserves just kept coming. This entire EVENT takes about 3.5 hours to complete but it is the best spent 3.5 hours I have had in a long time. The kids were in heaven, they could run around on the beach (with buckets and spades provided by the restaurant) while I could sit back, enjoying the beautiful sun and having the most relaxing afternoon.