On Thursday morning Louise, Matt and I were up bright and early for our day tour of the Cape Peninsula operated by Baz Bus. They collected us from our hostel and we drove round the city picking up other passengers along the way. Once everyone was on oard we made our way out of the city and to the Peninsula via the Atlantic Seaboard. This took us through the exquisite beach areas of Clifton, Camps Bay and Llandudno as well as past the stunning 12 Apostles rock formation.
Our first stop off was at Hout Bay to browse the market and curios stalls there or alternatively take a trip to Seal Island for an extra cost. We chose to stay in the harbour and take a look around. The stalls were fantastic selling many different trinkets and touristy items. We spotted a couple of seals lazily swimming around the harbour, one of them being fed by a local for tourists to get a closer look.
This seal was swimming around with his flippers out of the water as above and playfully rolling around. It was a joy to watch.
After I was torn away from the seals, especially the adorable second one, we made our way to the beach at Hout Bay. It was still a bit hazy due to the early morning sun and not exceptionally warm but it was good to have a look around what is an extremely pretty bay.
Our next stop was the scenic Chapman's Peak Drive, one of the most beautiful roads in the world, in my opinion. It was completed in 1922 after seven years of work carving the road out of the cliff face, a major engineering feat for the time. Over the years it has been closed numerous times for maintenance or to clear rock falls and it is now a toll road so that it's upkeep can be continued. The road is absolutely beautiful and gives superb views back over Hout Bay before winding round the cliffs towards the pristine beaches and clear sea of Noordhoek.
A bit of Chapman's Peak that has been reinforced to help prevent rockfalls.
We carried on our drive to the home of the South African Navy at Simon's Town. Unfortunately, due to time constraints we could not actually walk round the town and so had to be content with driving through. The main attraction however, where we did venture off the bus, was at Boulders Beach which is home to the African, or as they are also known, Jackass Penguins. They were given the name Jackass due to the bray-like noise they make.
From two breeding pairs in 1980 a whole colony of penguins has spawned with around 3000 now living in this protected area due to their endangered status. What I love about these penguins is that they are often quite cheeky. We spent a good 15 minutes dedicated to watching one penguin trying to rob sticks from other nests to create his own. Often he wasn't very successful because he wouldn't choose empty nests and so would be chased off by other irate penguins.
When we finally left the penguins it was time to head onto the Cape Point Nature Reserve where we got out off the bus for a 5km cycle through the park which was good fun. It was a good bit of exercise although I wouldn't recommend cycling barefoot (it was that or flip flops!). Lunch was next at one of the stops along the way to the Cape Point. Thankfully we didn't have to cycle all the way there, I'm definitely not fit enough, and so it was back onto the bus for the last drive to the most South-Western point of Africa.
As with every part of the Cape Point Reserve, the tip of the peninsula was absolutely breathtaking. We walked up to the lighthouse to get good views out over the ocean and coast line. However, we were a bit unlucky with the weather and whilst it was clear on our walk up, it suddenly clouded over just before we reached the light house meaning we couldn't see much at all.
This shows the difference that occurred in a matter of minutes. Luckily when we headed back down the path and away from the point we came back out into the sunshine. From here we walked for about 45 minutes or so along the cliffs to the Cape of Good Hope. It was a pleasant trip along a well trodden pathway and thankfully wasn't quite the hike the tour guide had built it up to be as otherwise my flip flops would have been rendered useless and completely inappropriate.
When we were leaving the park we stumbled across some of the reserve's wildlife babies...
These baby ostriches were trying to escape the ever present heat by having a sand bath whilst mum watched on.
The naughtiest baboon we came across!
After an eventful day it was time for us to pile back into the bus once more for the journey back to Cape Town. It was a wonderful day and we had an extremely good guide although I've forgotten half the facts as I'm writing this blog 3 weeks after the event! I have to say I was extremely impressed with Baz Bus for this day trip. It was only R540 - £36 and that included a light breakfast and lunch, bike ride, park entrance, penguin tickets and access to Chapman's Peak Drive as well as being ferried around. It somewhat redeems them for the hop-on hop-off journeys.
We had a relaxing evening after a hectic and well spent day.
Until next time.
A x
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