Exploring the city and beyond

Dear reader,

I continue to further explore this wonderful city, and as it happens the opportunity arose to see some of the lovely little surrounding areas as well.

The weather is still beautiful in Cape Town, although the locals are praying for some heavy heavy rain as there is a drought here currently. Coming from rainy UK I have to admit I don’t share the same sentiment yet…

I didn’t think I would but I am struggling to understand the South African accent! My husband is South African and I understood him clearly since our first meeting in the UK a few years ago, but his accent isn’t nearly as strong as the locals.

Without further rambling here are some exploration details and photos to make you jealous…

We stayed a few nights in Simon’s Town, and explored the nearby areas of Boulders Beach, Fish Hoek and Kalk Bay.

Simon’s Town is a town near Cape Town, which apparently is home to the South African Navy.

The spectacular view from my room in Simon’s Town:

Boulders Beach is located a few kilometres to the south of Simon’s Town, and it has a colony of African penguins!!! Such an awesome treat for me. We saw penguins even down at the beach local to Simon’s Town. Very strange to see penguins in a hot climate!

The penguins aren’t too shy of the curious people around them. Apparently they settled here in 1982 and from just two breeding pairs then, the penguin colony has grown to about 3,000 birds in recent years. Here’s a close up of one of them:

Fish Hoek (which means Fish Corner) is a coastal suburb of Cape Town, and its local Fish Hoek beach is flat with pleasant water temperatures at this time of the year for taking a dip in:

Kalk Bay is a fishing village and along the harbour we bought a massive Yellowtail fish, which lasted us for 3 meals, and each time about 3-5 people were eating. Cheap compared to the supermarket fish price too!

As a result of the fish mongers along the harbour you find fat seals just sunbathing at this spot, waiting for the next free meal of fish extras. They are very bold, not afraid of the people around them, some even waiting right outside the gates of the fish shops. Check out the lazy sunbathing one

As you can see, I’ve had the most extraordinary time on these short excursions, and they’re all within about an hours drive from the centre of Cape Town so you can bet I will be doing this all again at some point!

Lastly, we took another trip to Fish Hoek beach and this time the route we took was via Chapman’s Peak drive, the road which skirts Chapman’s Peak mountain. The views along the drive were breathtaking:

I look forward to your comments and/or questions. Until next time, cheers!