We departed Stellenbosch on June 22nd for a scenic 3½-hour drive to Hermanus where we were hoping to do a great white shark dive from nearby Gansbaai.
We booked the dive when we were in Cape Town and due to rough seas we had four dates cancelled up to and including the day of our arrival in Hermanus.
The day we arrived was windy, cold and miserable and with two nights booked we really weren’t sure what we would do with our time there. But lo and behold, we woke up the next morning to calmer seas and a beautiful sunny day and an email informing us our dive was a go for the next day.
Hermanus is a small tourist/surfer town with all the usual curio shops, galleries and funky restaurants but the highlight of our day was hiking the cliff trail which covers 11 km along wild coastline with giant crashing waves, kelp and mussel-strewn beaches and awe-inspiring views, all located in the Fernkloof Nature Reserve.
Hermanus is best known as among the best whale-watching towns in the world where southern right whales come to birth during the winter months. There was a mother and calf spotted in the bay but we didn’t have any luck seeing them.
We hiked about 9 km and it took us almost four hours because we had to stop and detour down every path and viewing area we came across to take in and absorb one spectacular sight after another. Hopefully our video will capture the magnitude of this area.
We’re posting this on June 25th, not the 19th as the blog indicates. I think the internet was sketchy on the 19th and we couldn’t continue, and because this site remembers dates we were afraid to change the date because it warns you that all previous links will be lost. Not knowing if that will screw everything up, we kept it at the 19th, so….
On June 20th we departed Cape Town and headed northeast to Stellenbosch in the heart of South African wine country, considered South Africa’s unofficial capital of wine tourism, with well over 200 beautiful winery estates. Nestled among the rolling hills and mountains of the Western Cape region, the area offers very dramatic landscapes, ancient oak trees, art galleries and restaurants.
Robben Island is best known as the location of the prison where Nelson Mandela was confined for 18 years of his 27-year sentence for sabotage against the apartheid regime of South Africa. The island is a rugged outpost about 45 minutes by ferry from mainland Cape Town and housed political as well as criminal inmates.
The political prisoners belonged to the ANC and PAC organizations and were separated according to colour: Black, Coloured, and Indian/Asian. Food rations were distributed according to colour, and the Black prisoners received the least favourable food and the smallest portions. Clothing was also distributed according to colour: Coloured and Indian/Asian prisoners were given long pants and shoes, while Black prisoners were given only shorts and no shoes.
All prisoners worked in the limestone quarry, most with shoes and the Black prisoners without.
The prisoners on the island, in some respects, considered themselves lucky. Upon their initial arrest for treason, sabotage, etc., they would be held in detention, where they were severely tortured for months on end. Many died, and many suffered severe mental and physical consequences.
Our guide in the prison was an ex-political prisoner and a survivor of the island. In his words, he felt the original police detention lasted a lifetime, while life on the island was more bearable. He was sentenced to seven years for what the officials called “terrorism.”
All prisoners, upon arrival, lost their identity and were known only by a number: three digits/two digits indicating prisoner number/year of incarceration. Nelson Mandela was prisoner 466/64, making him the 466th prisoner in the year 1964.
He remained there until 1982, when he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison and given the number 220/82, although prisoner number 46664 continues to be used as a reverential title for him.
The prison is only a small reflection of the history of the struggle against apartheid and the lives lost in the struggle for equality. Nelson Mandela is one of the many heroes, but one of the few who put forth the idea of truth and reconciliation between the country’s racial groups.
He was finally released from prison in 1990 and became South Africa’s first Black president, serving from 1994 to 1999. He died on December 5, 2013, at the age of 95.
We arrived in Cape Town mid-afternoon on June 15th after about a 365 km, five-hour drive from Karoo National Park. We discovered that entering EXACT information into our “Maps App” is essential, as we arrived at our “supposed” address right in the middle of a very sketchy area of a Cape Town suburb.
It turned out there is more than one “2 Milner Road” address! After gathering our wits, we programmed Siri to get us to The Cape Milner Hotel, located near the base of the famous Table Mountain.
We had a beautiful corner suite with a direct view of the mountain and Signal Hill (Signal Hill is not shown in the picture).
We had really lucked out so far with the weather in South Africa, and Cape Town was no exception. Friday morning, the 16th—and Joyce’s birthday—was sunny and warm. The area had been experiencing a severe drought, and the typical weather for this time of year is rain and cold, very similar to a Vancouver winter.
We drove up to the base of the mountain and the gondola station, then proceeded to the top, which has an elevation of 1,089 metres above sea level. Amazing views and flora greeted us.
A view of Robbens Island
After returning from the mountain, it was lunchtime and then a leisurely 2.7 km walk to the V&A Waterfront, a very large version of Granville Island on the Cape Town waterfront. The sun was shining, the air was warm, and the birds were chirping, but alas, there was danger lurking…
Not more than 10 minutes into our walk, we encountered a well-dressed man of local African lineage and, being the nice Canadians, we said hello and asked how he was doing. The day, Friday, was a national holiday, so the streets were bare of pedestrians, although there was vehicle traffic near the intersection where we met him.
He was doing well, thank you very much, and asked, “Are you heading to the waterfront?”
“Well, yes, we are.”
“Oh well then, being a national holiday, the bridge you need to cross requires a pass. You do have a pass, don’t you?”
“Well, no we don’t, but that seems odd.”
“No, no, not odd. You must get a pass, and you can get it over there.”
He pointed, we didn’t see anything, so we proceeded to cross the street, and he proceeded to pretend he was showing us the way to the place to buy the pass. He was walking a little ahead of us now, and he pulled out his cell phone and made a call.
We were very skeptical at this point. I walked past a couple of guards in front of a bank and peered around the corner of the street where we apparently could buy a pass. I didn’t see anything except an empty street.
At this point, a car pulled up on the side street, and several men of disrepute jumped out and started heading towards us. I turned around and went back to the bank guards. The bad guys turned around, jumped in their car and then picked up Mr. Nice Guy as he continued to walk away.
A robbery was thwarted.
If the bank guards hadn’t been there, we would have been robbed of our cameras and wallet, no doubt about it. I didn’t see everything that was going on, so Joyce added her perception of events. If it had been just her or me in this situation, things could have worked out much differently.
Lesson learned.
We hopped in a taxi, pissed off and a little shaken, and proceeded to the waterfront for a warm afternoon of birthday cheers and several cool beverages.
The next day, Saturday, the 17th, we headed south to the Cape of Good Hope with a stop at Boulders Beach, the only place in the world where you can get up close to the African penguin. This endangered species was put on the endangered species list in 2010. Of the 17 species of penguin, they are the only ones that breed in Africa.
Cape Town to Boulders Beach
Next stop was the Cape of Good Hope, which is the most southwestern point of the African continent. Huge crashing waves and windswept landscapes highlight the area, where ostriches and elands roam along the rugged coast.
We spent two nights in Johannesburg at a very nice B&B. The Outlook Lodge is an early-century home converted into a very comfortable lodge offering excellent breakfasts and service to match. We’ll be spending four more days at Outlook at the end of the South African portion of our journey.
Colesberg and Karoo National Park
After some hassle, we had our rental car delivered on the 12th. On the morning of the 13th, we headed off on our 1,500 km drive to Cape Town, with stops in Colesberg on the 13th and Karoo National Park on the 14th.
Colesberg is a small farming town, and the area is known for its lamb. We stayed one night, had a great lamb dinner at a nearby cozy restaurant, enjoyed a great breakfast the next morning and continued on to the Karoo.
Karoo National Park is a wildlife reserve in the Great Karoo area of the Western Cape near Beaufort West. This semi-desert park covers 750 square kilometres and is a sanctuary for springbok, gemsbok, Cape mountain zebra, buffalo, eland, kudu, ostriches, lions and more. It is an amazing landscape formed over 280 million years.
We arrived early in the afternoon and headed out in our Toyota Corolla for a 2½-hour drive around a 50 km loop of gravel road, where we were lucky to see some of the animals mentioned above. Our accommodation was excellent and offered an amazing view of the flat-topped hills of the Great Escarpment.
The evening silence that permeated the area was hard to describe. You could literally hear the blood flowing through your ears. Karoo was the perfect appetizer for things to come.
Onward to Cape Town
On the 15th, we headed onward to Cape Town, passing through spectacular countryside, snow-capped mountains and the Cape Winelands in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The views were awesome.
