Part 2 of PE & Cape Town Holiday
Easter Sunday I boarded the same bus I originally left Durban on at the start of my journey. The following day after the brick incident the bus windows were replaced and it was road worthy again. This bus journey was only 12 hrs in length, but a good part of the route traveled through the beautiful Garden Route and the Little Karoo of South Africa. Where on the one side you have the beautiful Indian Ocean to look out at some of the time and the other side was a massive mountain ridge, it is very beautiful breath taking scenery to travel through! I finally arrived into a windy Cape Town just after 8pm, Easter Sunday night and discovered the Easter Bunny had left me sweets on my bed.
During my 6 nights, 5 days in Cape Town I stayed at the Ashanti Green Point Back Packers. It is a really nice place with friendly staff and it’s also a pretty new location; where I spent a lot of time in the evenings mingling with the other guest from around the world. Most of the travelers I met during the week either at Ashanti or my day tours were mostly from Europe, such as Holland, Sweden, Germany, and Belgium and then also from England, Wales, South Korea, Brazil, Australia, Canada, USA, Nepal, Thailand, and from the Islands of Madagascar! I think I got them all!!
My first 2 days I traveled around the city on the City Sight Seeing Bus. This is a really great way to tour around the city. It is a double decker bus and the top part is open, and you receive ear phones to listen to an audio guided city tour of the city as you drive down the streets. As you travel along, you are able to hop off and then back on at any of the route stops. So Monday I took the Blue Bus, which was the mini Peninsula tour and I first hopped off at the Kristenbosch Botanical Gardens, which is located on the other side of Table Mountain. It is a very beautiful place with lots of flower beds and the mountains make a beautiful back drop against everything. Mingling throughout the park besides people, were guinea fowl birds, lots and lots of them. It was very beautiful and I kept myself busy photographing lots of different plants and different varieties of the Nations flower, The Protea. The next stop I hopped off at was at Imizamo Yethu, a township built up where it used to be a garbage dump site. Next and after that I hopped off at Camps Bay where I dinned at a beach front restaurant. Camps Bay is a very posh/wealthy beach area and the homes are very expensive, it is here that you can get a beautiful view of The Twelve Apostles. A long mountainous ridge which consists of about 17 mountain peaks in a row. That pretty much sums up my first day of Cape Town.
Tuesday, the following day I took the red bus route and stayed within the city hopping on and off at various points along the route which included a market where you could by African crafts and souvenirs, I spent a bit of time browsing amongst the different booths. The sellers are very eager to sell you their things and will try and barter a good price with you. Afterwards I made my way to the Castel of Good Hope where I did a very quick and brief tour of inside the grounds, since I was eager to get to Table Mountain, the weather was good and it was finally open for tourists. Weather plays a big roll in whether it is safe to travel up the World Famous Mountain! It is so beautiful and breath taking at the top and you can see quite far out on a clear day.
Easter Sunday I boarded the same bus I originally left Durban on at the start of my journey. The following day after the brick incident the bus windows were replaced and it was road worthy again. This bus journey was only 12 hrs in length, but a good part of the route traveled through the beautiful Garden Route and the Little Karoo of South Africa. Where on the one side you have the beautiful Indian Ocean to look out at some of the time and the other side was a massive mountain ridge, it is very beautiful breath taking scenery to travel through! I finally arrived into a windy Cape Town just after 8pm, Easter Sunday night and discovered the Easter Bunny had left me sweets on my bed.
During my 6 nights, 5 days in Cape Town I stayed at the Ashanti Green Point Back Packers. It is a really nice place with friendly staff and it’s also a pretty new location; where I spent a lot of time in the evenings mingling with the other guest from around the world. Most of the travelers I met during the week either at Ashanti or my day tours were mostly from Europe, such as Holland, Sweden, Germany, and Belgium and then also from England, Wales, South Korea, Brazil, Australia, Canada, USA, Nepal, Thailand, and from the Islands of Madagascar! I think I got them all!!
My first 2 days I traveled around the city on the City Sight Seeing Bus. This is a really great way to tour around the city. It is a double decker bus and the top part is open, and you receive ear phones to listen to an audio guided city tour of the city as you drive down the streets. As you travel along, you are able to hop off and then back on at any of the route stops. So Monday I took the Blue Bus, which was the mini Peninsula tour and I first hopped off at the Kristenbosch Botanical Gardens, which is located on the other side of Table Mountain. It is a very beautiful place with lots of flower beds and the mountains make a beautiful back drop against everything. Mingling throughout the park besides people, were guinea fowl birds, lots and lots of them. It was very beautiful and I kept myself busy photographing lots of different plants and different varieties of the Nations flower, The Protea. The next stop I hopped off at was at Imizamo Yethu, a township built up where it used to be a garbage dump site. Next and after that I hopped off at Camps Bay where I dinned at a beach front restaurant. Camps Bay is a very posh/wealthy beach area and the homes are very expensive, it is here that you can get a beautiful view of The Twelve Apostles. A long mountainous ridge which consists of about 17 mountain peaks in a row. That pretty much sums up my first day of Cape Town.
Tuesday, the following day I took the red bus route and stayed within the city hopping on and off at various points along the route which included a market where you could by African crafts and souvenirs, I spent a bit of time browsing amongst the different booths. The sellers are very eager to sell you their things and will try and barter a good price with you. Afterwards I made my way to the Castel of Good Hope where I did a very quick and brief tour of inside the grounds, since I was eager to get to Table Mountain, the weather was good and it was finally open for tourists. Weather plays a big roll in whether it is safe to travel up the World Famous Mountain! It is so beautiful and breath taking at the top and you can see quite far out on a clear day.
A top of Table Mountain
Wednesday, was my wine tour out to Stellenbosch, Paarl, and a couple other nearby wineries. The Winelands are another beautiful area to explore in the Cape area, set a little bit back from the coast, but not too far away and still nestled in amongst the mountains. The wineries had just harvested the last of the grapes off the vines; but it is fall here and the leaves have started to turn brown, which help to enhance the already beautiful scenery; and soon be for we know, it will be winter. My favourite winery out of the four would have to be a tie between my first and second winery. The first winery also included cheese tasting and also had a bakery where you could purchase fresh baked bread. The second winery I enjoyed the atmosphere, and the presentation of tasting the wines. It was another great day of my holiday!
When traveling to Cape Town, a must on your to do list is to drive around the Peninsula, and stop at Hout Bay and visit Seal Island and see all the seals, Simon’s Town & Boulders Beach to see the oh so cute Jackass (African) Penguins, Chapmans Drive for a spectacular view of Hout Bay, bike down to Cape of Good Hope and hike over to Cape Point where the two Oceans meet (Indian & Atlantic). This is how I spent my day on the Thursday, touring around the Peninsula and it was fantastic, even though I was pretty sore and stiff by the time I reached Cape Point! But it was so worth it!! Along my travels in the Peninsula I saw blesbuck, ostrich, little furry dassies (look like bunnies with little ears), eland and finally some baboons along the road side going back into the city.
Friday was my day to visit Robben Island, wander around the V&A (Victoria & Alfred) Waterfront, and meet up with Chantale’s , (my good friend from home) cousin, Vanessa, who is spending a high school semester in Cape Town. Let’s just say that the weather wasn’t in the cards for me and my Robben Island tour was cancelled due to unsafe water travels over to the island! Drats, if I ever get back to the Mother City it will be a must! So I ended meeting up with Vanessa earlier and a couple of her friends and we visited the Two Oceans Aquarium. The aquarium was neat and we saw a variety of different penguins getting fed, other neat and cool sea creatures and of course the Great White Shark! Afterwards we just wandered around the waterfront. It was a pretty good last full day in Cape Town and I feel pretty accomplished that I was able to do most of the things on my to do list.
Saturday morning I flew back to Durban, but almost missed my flight! Can’t seem to get away from a little bit of excitement and stress on the traveling from one city to another. I am now back to work in PMB, and probably no more big travel plans until I leave in July.
Cheers and I hope you enjoyed reading about my holiday down to Port Elizabeth and Cape Town
Signing off…
No comments:
Post a Comment