Cape Town: 30th January

Our flights from Bristol to Schiphol and Schiphol on to Cape Town were uneventful and we arrived on schedule at the modern Cape Town International Airport on schedule and were met at the gate by a charming South African driver who took us to our overnight accommodation at The Dolphin Inn at Mouille Point. We had planned to be here for five nights and it would have been an ideal location to visit the city and also to explore the Cape area more extensively, but this was not to be. So our first decision was how to make the best use of our only day in Cape Town.

We decided to set off as soon as our hire car was delivered and take an abbreviated Cape Peninsula tour, not driving as far as the Cape of Good Hope itself but seeing some of the scenery and at least visiting Boulders Bay to see the penguin colony there. The day was initially overcast but as we drove the very scenic coastal route of Chapman's Peak Drive the clouds broke and for the rest of the day we had blue skies and warm sunshine.

Click here for a short video of Chapman's Peak Drive.

Boulders Bay at Simonstown has had a colony of penguins only since 1985 but they are now very well established and it is possible to get up close and personal, providing some great photo opportunities.

The most direct route on the drive from Simonstown to our next stop took us through the Townships of Mitchell's Plain.  This was our first experience of the extremes in South African life. Townships have an enormous range of housing which include modern two storey dwellings of brick and tile to shanty constructions of timber and corrugated iron, with just about everything imaginable in between. What else stood out as we headed for Paarl were the modern schools and, at the end of the school day, the number of children and young people now in full time education who were largely denied this opportunity during the apartheid era.