NOTE: WE ARE WORKING ON IMAGES. THEY SHOULD BE UP IN NEXT DAY. WE WILL UPDATE POST WITH IMAGES.
It has been a busy couple of days. Our plans had changed a couple of times do you both weather and rough seas. So, the last several days we have driving around going to National Parks. The first park we visited was Table Mountain in Cape Town. The next day we drove down Boulder Beach and the Cape of Good Hope. The third day we drove to Spier Winery and the town of Hermanus.
Table Mountain
Table Mountain is in Cape Town. It is part of one of the oldest mountain ranges of world. It is a mountain that is a plateau on top. There are several hiking paths to the top or you can ride the cable car. The hiking paths can take from 1.5 hours to several hours. However, the girls decided to ride the cable car because it was a bit chilly. Once at the top it was an awesome view of Cape Town and the surrounding area. We did the Klipspringer Walk, which was 45-minute walk around the plateau. It was about 50 degrees, but the wind was fairly strong.
My big success of the day was getting accustom to driving on the left side of the road and all the road rules in South Africa. Well, at least some of the rules.
Boulder Beach
Boulder Beach is about an hour drive from Cape Town. The beach is known for two things, giant granite boulders on the beach and a colony of African Penguins. The girls, including Elizabeth, loved the penguins. They were pretty cool. From the parking lot there is a walk way that has hundreds of penguins living in the bushes just above the beach. As you walk to the beach there is only a small fence separating you from the penguins. At the beach, you pay a couple of dollars to enter the fence area to join the penguins on the beach. There is no separation, just warnings that penguins bite! It was still a bit chilly when we were at the beach, so just a couple penguins made a showing. Most of them were still lying in the brush. Supposedly, in warmer weather the penguins enjoy the beach, even joining beach goers on their towels. However, the girls reeled in the change to take of their shoes and run around in the sand and water. They found a starfish!
Cape of Good Hope
After leaving Boulder Beach we were looking for somewhere to each and the parking guard recommended Two Oceans. It was a bit of a drive, but he said it had a great view, so we headed that way. It was more than a great view, it is one of the grandest views I have ever seen. Plus, on the way there Elizabeth and I saw zebras, the girls missed them. Though Cape of Good Hope is often mistakenly described as the most southern point of Africa and the place where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet, both are incorrect. St. AGGG is both the most southern point and the place were the two oceans meet. Anyways, at Cape of Good Hope we had a small walk/hike to reach the point. One the walk we crossed paths with a several eland antelopes and four ostriches. Reaching the point was one of the pretty landscapes I have ever seen. Watching and hearing the waves crash into the cliffs below, we could have spent all day there. It was absolutely spectacular.
On the way to the point there was a set of stairs that went down to the beach. They were steep and long. When we first past the stairs we decided, it would best to see the point because we had just under two hours before the park closed. On the way back, we still had 50 minutes so Brooklyn and decided to run down the stairs to the beach. Elizabeth said she would have went, but Kaleigh had flip-flops so she could not. The stairs down was actually not too bad, there was a fun 15 feet straight down sand hill at the bottom we slid down. The beach was well worth it. The waves were 15-20 feet, you could feel them as they crashed into the beach. Both sides has 1000+ feet cliffs, it was something out of a movie. Now, the way up. The cool sand hill we slid down, about killed me running up it! Of course, Brooklyn wanted to race so it was all our running...she is getting pretty fast. The stairs would not have been all that bad if I was not still trying to catch my breath from the sand hill. We finally made it after 208 unequal stairs later.
Spier Winery
If this trip was just Elizabeth and I we would have been going through wine country. However, since the girls are with us we have been doing more family events. One of guides recommend we drive over to Spier Winery because it is family friendly, so we did. It was only about an hour outside of Cape Town, so it was not a bad drive and well worth it. At Spier while we did our wine tasting the girls got to do sparking grape juice tasting. Though as we did this family event I was not sure if we were having a good family time or teaching our kids how fun it is to do wine tasting? After the tasting was done you could not buy a glass of wine, but you could buy bottles and rent glasses, so we did. They have a fairly large property to walk around with kids play area and we ran into a turtle! Additionally, they had a predator bird rescue.
This was one of the more interesting rescues I have ever been to because it was all predator birds. There was a whole host of falcons, eagles, and other predator birds. There was also a playground with an ostrich and piglets the girls got to go in and play. The most interesting part was at the end. There were 7 owls just perched in the walkway you could walk up and pet. Yup, just petting an owl. The one Kaleigh was petting loved it and was even lowering its head to get the right spot. Then as we were petting the owls they brought out a boa constrictor and corn snake to hold. There was a family in front of us, so a worker offered to go in the owl cage while we waited. We all had a glove on, the worker would place a piece of chicken in it, and instantly an owl would fly in perch on your hand. We moved from the hand to the head, that is correct we all had an owl perch on our head, never thought I would say that! After the owls we moved back to the snake and bearded dragon which we played with for a bit, the girls liked the snakes more than I did!
It was a pretty fun day wine, owls on heads, and snakes around our neck!
Hermanus
On our way home, we stopped by Hermanus, which we are head to the next day. Hermanus is best place in the world to see Whales from the shore. We were only stopping to have a lunch/dinner before heading back to Cape Town, so our hopes were not too high. We eat a small restaurant that had a good view of the water. It was within 15 minutes of sitting down that a Southern Right Whale breach in the water. It was bit out in the water, but we saw it. We were supposed to be back in Hermanus the next day to go for whale watching, but they called it off because of the rough seas coming in.
The next day, since whale watching was cancelled we took the longer route and drove the coastline between Cape Town and Hermanus. We did not see much, but we did see a baboon! Along our drives there has been signs warning about not feeding baboons and warning they are aggressive. We were excited when we finally got to see one. The next several days we have a lot of driving, ostriches, and another try at shark diving and whale watching.
