We left Stellenbosch as weather down south started to get worse. As we headed North West the sun came out, although the South Easterly wind was unrelenting. The vineyards area and Montagu had 3 days of terrible weather with massive floods resulting - we passed through not a day to soon.
The west coast was beautiful and very different from where we had been previously. Lots of empty white sand beaches stretching for mile upon mile and inland huge wheat fields for a hundred and fifty kilometers north of Cape Town. It was quiet - geared up for local tourists, not international visitors. Our first stop was Langabaan and the West Coast National Park, situated on a vast natural lagoon. The north of the lagoon has a steel works and deepwater port where they export iron ore and have a large fishing fleet and a naval base. The southern part of the lagoon is popular with sailors and wind surfers & kite borders and the very southern part is one to the beautiful National Park. We spent a whole day in the park: visiting bird hides for a bit of bird watching, having coffee and muffins at the lovely old cape dutch farm house that had been converted into a cafe, looking over the dunes down at the choppy Atlantic. Whilst at the Atlantic ocean view point I spotted a group of Southern Right Whales - cool! We carried on down to a spot where the beach turned into a rock headland intending to walk and have a picnic but right inshore, no more than 200 meteres offshore were another group of Southern rights, with another bunch of the whales a further 100 - 200m out. Brilliant! They breached, spy-hopped, tail crashed and put there flippers out of the water, top entertainment.
From Langbaan we spent 3 nights in Vilddriff, a small town at the mouth of the Berg river. There was some good birdwatching along the river and lakes north of the town. We had a pleasant day looking at the birds and picnicking at the lakes. Lovely and sunny, but still bloomin windy. From vildriff we also had a day trip up to ClanWilliam and the Cedarberg mountains. They are very steep and dramatic (as all south African mountains seem to be). The wild flowers were lovely and we were able to see some of the famed rock art left behind by the khoi-San, the original settlers of this area.
It was then down to Cape Town. We visited boulders beach near Simons Town so as to see the resident colony of Jackass penquins - cute. We continued onto The Cape of Good Hope. It was really busy, but worth going as the earlier rough weather made the sea swells large and added to teh drama of teh place. Cape point is a really interesting place - old old geology and really pretty scenery and bush. We have also visited Table Mountain via the cable car, Rhonda could not be persuaded to walk up! We have eaten very well, my belly is defintly expanding and I will need to start running when we get to Auckland. The town is actually very busy and we had difficulty getting a room at a backpackers. We ended up in a terrible place, they put us in an "Annex House" - actually a house that is rented out to long term residents that had a spare room and it was not exactly clean - like being in an all male student flat! And the windows did not shut properly, so it was noisy at it was on a main road. I was not happy, but we had to endure it for 2 nights until I got us in to a nice hotel right close to teh Victoria and Alfred Waterfront (it used to be a prison!). We really like Cape Town, it is pretty safe, nice architecture and great cafes, bars, music etc plus a location to die for.
So tomorrow is our last day in Africa! We head to Grafton, Australia to spend 2 weeks with Rhondas brother John and his family, so looking foward to that. Then back to Auckland on December the 10th and we will have to start the process of getting jobs, sorting the house out etc. Still we have really enjoyed our long holiday, but both of us will be happy to be in one place for a while.
I will keep you updated of how we get on in Auckland.
