Breakfast at 7:20am followed by meeting Simpiwe (or "Sim") in the lobby for our full day tour of various Cape Town area attractions. In our van were 2 other couples, one from China and one from Holland. Both were very nice to spend the day with.
We started in Hout Bay harbor where we saw some seals. Next we headed up Chapman's Peak Drive. The morning was very foggy so instead of seeing the ocean on Chapman's Peak Drive we mostly saw clouds and bits of ocean here and there. Following Chapman's Peak we entered Cape Point which is some 7,500 hectares and part of Table Mountain National Park. We drove down to the edge of the African continent at the Cape of Good Hope and got our tourist picture at the southern-most point of Africa next to the big sign with map coordinates on it. Along the way we also got to see a group of wild Ostrich wandering the park and staring at us as we stopped to take some photos.
Next stop was the Cape Point lighthouse, on arrival to the base we couldn't see the lighthouse at the top of the mountain as the thick fog was obscuring it completely. We hiked the 15min up to the top anyways and within 10min the fog had lifted and it was a clear day up there. When we got to the top we could see a thick layer of fog covering the ocean but we were above that so created some impressive views.
After Cape Point we headed into Simon's Town, also home to the South African navy. We stopped at Boulders Beach, where a colony of about 2500 african penguins made their home starting with 2 penguins back in 1982. We walked around there for a bit then headed to lunch with the rest of our tour group. We ate at a sseafood restaurant where I had tasty lobster bisque and a local pizza. Sarah had the seafood curry.
Following lunch we drove to Kirstenbosch botanical gardens, which is famous around the world for its flowers and various plants. It was located in a valley surrounded by mountains which made for some great scenery.
After leaving Kirstenbosch we headed back to our hotel, driving by the presidential house currently lived in by South African president Jacob Zuma. After arriving back at our hotel we went out for a walk around Cape Town near our hotel and then watched some World Cup matches.
Tonight we met up with my friend Ben again who lives in Cape Town and works at a township school. He recommended Mitchell's Brewhouse down at the waterfront as a good spot to watch the game so he picked us up in the VW and we headed over to the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. There we had a few local beers and watched Spain-Chile on one set of tv's and Honduras-Switzerland on another set of tv's. Then back to our hotel for the night. Sadly our last night in South Africa. :-(
