Category: Travel

The weather forecast for today indicated high winds, around 40kph in Cape Town, meaning the cable car would be shut, and there’d be no climbing allowed. Despite even higher wind speeds at the Cape of Good Hope, we decided to head down there anyway. Mark & Abi, Ryan and I drove down to Cape Point (well, yet again, Mark did all the driving), with a brief scenery stop at Hout Bay to see the Sentinel in great light. It was at this point that I contemplating trying my polarising filter, and I’m SO glad I remembered I had it. Check out these two photos of the Sentinel without and then with the filter:

Another brief stop over Kommetje (pronounce Komiki) Bay, to see the stunning beach in a different light. On Saturday, we saw it in the afternoon sun:

Today, we saw it in the morning, and I used the polarising filter to enhance the colours:

Arriving at the entrance to the Cape National Park, we suddenly realised that Ryan’s wildcard was with Lauri (they shared a partner card), and Lauri was still in Cape Town with Glen and Other Mark (something about Other Mark’s girlfriend taking a bubble bath?!). Luckily, Mark, Abi and I presented our Wild Cards, and they let our car through. Although we did smuggle Ryan into the National Park, he had actually paid for a Wild Card, so we did nothing wrong.

We grabbed a bite to eat at the shop at the foot of the Cape Point “hill”, then climbed up to the lighthouse at the summit for some spectacular views. The winds felt quite calm until we hit the very peak, where we were exposed on almost all sides, and were hit by gusts of 60kph. The views of the cliffs, False Bay, and the whole Cape Peninsula were all incredible, and we had lots of fun “flying” in the wind :)

We then walked down the hill, and along the coastline to the Cape of Good Hope, along an even windier and more exposed stretch of beautiful fynbos and secluded beach cove scenery, where Abi was actually blown off the boardwalk. Luckily, the wind was blowing inland, otherwise she may have been blown over the cliffs. The winds at some points must have been reaching some 100kph, it’s difficult to tell (Mark suggested to Abi that she stick her head out of the car window on the drive back to Cape Town, and at different speeds, she’d rate how similar the feeling was – Abi wasn’t too keen). At the Cape of Good Hope, we saw a small sailboat tearing along in the high winds, travelling at a great rate of knots – very brave, and also giving an insight into how the original sailors such as Bartolomeu Dias coped in their large ships.

Having had enough of our sea-spray-blasting for the day, we drove back up to Cape Town, arriving in good time for what promised to be a decent sunset. A friend of mine had given me a very strong recommendation for La Med, a bar in Camps Bay, which was backed up by one of Mark’s father’s friends. Having missed the bar’s location a few days ago, I’d since looked it up, and discovered it was part of the poorly signposted Glenn Country Club. The wind was still rather breezy here in Cape Town, but we sat outside as close to the coast as was available. We slowly watched the sun drop towards the horizon, seeing the colours in front of and behind us slowly change and become golden, and enjoying some absolutely delicious pizzas and cocktails (smoked salmon, sour cream and avocado pizza, with a Granadilla (Passion Fruit) Daiquiri – heaven)!

I headed over to the Camps Bay end of La Med to get some photos of The Twelve Apostles and Camps Bay Beach bathed in golden sunlight, even though I was being buffeted and sand-blasted (I could see the grains of sand bouncing off me, and some of the photos came out slightly blurred due to gusts of wind shaking the camera!)

Back at our table, the sun was slowly dipping into the ocean, but without clouds to paint the sky with myriad colours, the sunset simply provided some beautiful hues of orange and yellow. We’d simply have to come back and do it all again :)