We departed Stellenbosch on June 22nd for a scenic 3 1/2 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 Hermaus. 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 kms 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 North East to Stellenbosch in the heart of South African wine country and 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.
Robbens Island is best known for 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 the mainland of Cape Town and housed political as well as criminal inmates. The political prisoners belonged to the ANC and PAC organizations and were separated by their color; Blacks, Colored and Indian/Asian. Food rations were distributed according to color and the blacks received the least favorable food and the smallest portions. Clothing was also distributed according to color where the colored and Indians/Asians were given long pants and shoes while the blacks were given only shorts and no shoes. All colors worked in the limestone quarry, most with shoes and the blacks 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 jail 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 7 years for what the officials called” terrorism”.
All prisoners upon arrival lost all of their identity and were only known by a number. Three digits/two digits indicating prisoner number/year of incarceration. Nelson Mandela was prisoner 46664 making the 466th prisoner in the year of 1964. He remained there until 1982 when he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison and was 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 reconciliation between the countries racial groups. He was finally released from prison in 1990 and became the first black president from 1994 to 1999. he died December 5th, 2013 at the age of 95.
We arrived into Cape Town mid afternoon on June 15th after about a 365 km, 5 hour drive from Karoo National Park and 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 are more than one “2 Milner Road” road addresses! 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 have a beautiful corner suite with a direct view of the mountain and Signal Hill ( Signal Hill not shown in the picture),
We have 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 has 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 gondola station and proceeded to the top which has an elevation of 1089 metres above sea level. Amazing views and flora greeted us.
A view of Robbens Island
After returning from the mountain it was lunch time 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 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 “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 points, we don’t see anything so we proceed to cross the street and he proceeds to pretend he is showing us the way to the place to buy the pass. He’s walking a little ahead of us now and he pulls out his cell phone and makes a call. We are very skeptical at this point and I walk past a couple of guards in front of a bank and I peer around the corner of the street where we apparently can buy a pass and I don’t see anything except an empty street. At this point a car pulls up on the side street and several men of disrepute jump out and start heading towards us. I turn around and go back to the bank guards and the bad guys turn around, jump in their car and then pick up Mr. nice guy as he continued to walk away. A robbery was thwarted. If the bank guards weren’t 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 in her perception of events. If it was just her or me in this situation things could have worked out much differently. Lesson learned. We hopped 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 Cape of Good Hope with a stop in Boulders Beach, the only place in the world where you can get up close to the African Penguin, an endangered species which were put on the Endangerd Species list in 2010. Of 17 species of penguins, they are the only ones that breed in Africa.
Cape Town to Boulders Beach
Next stop was Cape of Good Hope which is the most South Western point of the African continent. Huge crashing waves and windswept landscapes highlight the area where Ostrich 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 2 1/2-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.
