Friday – August 27, 2010 –

We began the morning with breakfast at the Bay Hotel buffet. Not long afterwards, our guide Alex picked us up and drove us and a retired Tasmanian couple on the Daytrippers Cape Tour. We toured around Cape Town and saw amazing views of the South Atlantic, the 12 Apostles and Table Mountain under bright blue skies today.

The drive south towards the Cape

Our first stop was Boulders Beach, located on the Cape Peninsula, with  a sheltered beach known for its granite boulders. However, it’s most famous for its colony of African Penguins which settled there in 1982. The penguins are protected here thanks to the beach being part of Table Mountain National Park.

Boulders Beach

African penguins

South of town and closer to the tip of Africa, we then mountain biked the roads down the Cape of Hope. It was probably one of the prettiest bike rides I have ever been on. At one stop, we saw a baboon jump on a parked taxi in the parking lot.

The Cape

After arriving at the Cape, we parked the bikes and hiked to Cape Point and out to the lighthouses at Diaz Point. The point was named after Bartolemu Diaz, the Portuguese explorer who was the first European to round the Cape looking for a trade route to India and China. In the distance we saw some whales floating of the coast. After walking out to scenic point around the lighthouse, we could see all the way to the Indian Ocean in the distance! Then we returned via the Cape Flats to Cape Town and then to Camps Bay.

Cape Point

Back in Camps Bay, we finally had some beach time, although the waters were cold in winter. We went out and watched the sunset on the beach across from our hotel, which was spectacular as it sank into the southern ocean. We thought about how further south from us was the last land mass – Antarctica!

Then we ate dinner in our hotel’s restaurant. We ate well by downing t-bone steaks and a crepe pancake. It was very peaceful in the candlelight with the sound of the crashing waves outside. We then went to bed early because we had to get up early in the morning.