Stellenbosch
We visited the beautiful wine country and town of Stellenbosch twice while in Cape Town. The first was a brief visit to the town, but a wonderful full day visit to 3 local wineries and the second was for a nice relaxing dinner at one of the many outside cafes in the quaint downtown area. While neither of us are big wine drinkers (obviously beer is the drink of choice for this mother/daughter team), we knew we had to make this experience a fulfilling one by trying way more wines that we are accustomed to drinking. I think we had 12 glasses each throughout the day. We started the day by visiting the oldest winery in the Cape region (making wine since 1692!). We enjoyed a wonderful tasting of the Spier wine while strolling around their garden overlooking the vineyards and a beautiful lake. Our second stop was Kleine Zalze who started making wine in 1695 and was located on another beautiful piece of property and we were served our tastings in a nice Tuscan styled bar. After about 8 glasses of wine we were excited (or maybe desperate) to have our 2:30 lunch at our next location. As we drove to our third winery we passed the Ernie Els property and were hoping that was to be our third stop, but we continued on and were not disappointed by the arrival at the Haskell winery where we enjoyed a relaxing and wonderful afternoon, a full gourmet meal, and of course more wine. This tasting was delightful as they paired the tastings with the food and the views were incredibly beautiful looking out onto the mountains of vineyards.
Cape Point
No trip to Cape Town is complete without journeying to the south-western most point of the African continent, the Cape of Good Hope, to look out over the Atlantic Ocean and know there is nothing but sea between you and Antarctica. We rented a car for this trip and started our day with a road trip to Simonstown and Boulder’s Beach to see the African penguins. We were a bit disappointed with the views and the small number of penguins we saw, but it was a nice stop and walk along the rocky coast of Boulder’s Beach. We continued down the False Bay coast to the southern section of Table Mountain National Park and then to the Cape of Good Hope and to the impressive site of Cape Point. The winding drive along the rocky cliff edged coast was simply amazing and beautiful. Our return trip was to travel west up the Atlantic coastline, driving on the infamous Chapman’s Peak, passing through Hout Bay, before settling on a spot near Camps Bay along side of the road to watch the sunset over the Atlantic.
Strand Beach & Gordon's Bay
One weekend morning we decided we wanted to have a relaxing beach day outside of Cape Town, so we drove about 45 minutes outside the city to Strand Beach, which is a popular vacation spot for South Africans. We chose to walk along the coast to get some ice cream before heading to the next town, Gordon’s Bay to visit the best International Book Store near the Cape Peninsula and to walk along Bikini Beach. Both beaches had charm and were in the protected False Bay, but it was much too cold of a day for swimming. So we enjoyed our ice cream, lunch, the shopping and some long casual walking along the coast.
Hermanus & Betty's Bay
Hermanus, one of the world’s best locations for whale watching from the shore, is located about 2 hours from Cape Town, and was on our list for a weekend visit. So we set out through Sir Lawry’s Pass with beautiful views of the inner mountainous landscape of the Cape Peninsula to arrive at Hermanus in time for lunch. We enjoyed our lunch on the coastline and were particularly surprised at how many times during our meal we heard “Look! There!” and then simultaneously saw patrons running out to see the whales in the bay. We saw more Southern Right Whales than we ever thought we would during our lunchtime adventure and we were particularly entertained with a mother whale and her calf playing near the surf where we’d parked our car. But then it was time to go in search of our next animal – the Great White Shark – in Gansbaai, the nearest city and harbor to famed “Shark Alley.” We didn’t see any sharks that day, but we did see more whales! For our return trip to Cape Town we decided to take the Whale Coast drive from Gansbaai back through Hermanus through to Betty’s Bay. Betty’s Bay is not as popular as Boulder’s Beach, but anyone who is visiting this region with a car should go to Betty’s Bay to see the many, many penguins. There were penguins everywhere: penguins in their nests, penguins in the water, penguins feeding their babies, penguins toddling along the pathways… Suffice it to say, we were in African penguin heaven. We enjoyed the penguins and then were back in the car to drive back along coast of False Bay, which gave us another lovely view of the sun setting behind the Table Mountain range.
Mossel Bay, Myoli Beach, & the Garden Route
One weekend we took a travel trip in a van with 26 other volunteers as we adventured for a weekend on a Garden Route tour. We were not responsible for the itinerary so besides knowing a few highlights, we were ready to go with the flow and see what this tour would be all about. The hostel where we stayed was located on Myoli Beach and so the accommodation location was fantastic. We enjoyed our evenings at the large outdoor fire pit surrounded by the sand floor bar and restaurant. Our dinners were typical of an African braai (bar-b-que) for our dinners, although Ann got to enjoy an over the fire vegetarian pizza which was fantastic! Our activities on the tour began with a safari ride at a beautiful private ranch, onto an Elephant sanctuary, a breeding farm for ostriches and a wildlife farm.
The 2 1/2 hour safari was filled with a jeep ride across the well-manicured mountain range where we saw rhinos, zebras, eland, giraffes, wildebeests, lions, and elephants! These animals were very aware and comfortable with humans and so they remained very calm and relaxed, which was a very different experience than we had when we lived in the bush camp for the week in Botswana, where the animals were wild. At the elephant sanctuary, we were excited for the close encounter and the ability to feed the elephants, but still we much preferred our time in the wild where our line of sight and camera lens were the closest encounters we had; with the exception of our visit from Captain, the elephant who came to our camp in Botswana. Next was the Ostrich farm, where Ann had an ostrich eat off of her shoulder and we were able to see an ostrich egg hatching. The ostrich farm was quite a bit touristy and although we believe they took care of the ostrich’s and they were helping to ensure reproduction was successful, it was not one of our favorite animal visits. The wildlife range had some beautiful animals like the snow-white Bengal tiger, the leopard, and our particular favorite was the adorable lemurs they had. I think seeing the lemurs just made us more excited to see them in their natural habitat in Madagascar (another place to add to the ever growing bucket list). The scenery of the garden route through never ending vineyards of the some of the best wine country in South Africa, and the varying landscape of immense rocky mountains and the lush filled pine tree forests was all so very gorgeous and although we probably would not go back to the animal ranch, sanctuary, or farm we would return for continuing on the Garden Route for the landscape views. For us, the highlight of the Garden Route tour was the bungee, which we will tell you about under our “Cape Adventure” part of the South African blog.
The 2 1/2 hour safari was filled with a jeep ride across the well-manicured mountain range where we saw rhinos, zebras, eland, giraffes, wildebeests, lions, and elephants! These animals were very aware and comfortable with humans and so they remained very calm and relaxed, which was a very different experience than we had when we lived in the bush camp for the week in Botswana, where the animals were wild. At the elephant sanctuary, we were excited for the close encounter and the ability to feed the elephants, but still we much preferred our time in the wild where our line of sight and camera lens were the closest encounters we had; with the exception of our visit from Captain, the elephant who came to our camp in Botswana. Next was the Ostrich farm, where Ann had an ostrich eat off of her shoulder and we were able to see an ostrich egg hatching. The ostrich farm was quite a bit touristy and although we believe they took care of the ostrich’s and they were helping to ensure reproduction was successful, it was not one of our favorite animal visits. The wildlife range had some beautiful animals like the snow-white Bengal tiger, the leopard, and our particular favorite was the adorable lemurs they had. I think seeing the lemurs just made us more excited to see them in their natural habitat in Madagascar (another place to add to the ever growing bucket list). The scenery of the garden route through never ending vineyards of the some of the best wine country in South Africa, and the varying landscape of immense rocky mountains and the lush filled pine tree forests was all so very gorgeous and although we probably would not go back to the animal ranch, sanctuary, or farm we would return for continuing on the Garden Route for the landscape views. For us, the highlight of the Garden Route tour was the bungee, which we will tell you about under our “Cape Adventure” part of the South African blog.