3.04.2016 – 3.04.2016  25 °C

We decided the night before that we would get ourselves up early and head up to Table Mt before it opened so that we wouldn’t have to line up for ages. Was a good plan because although we were more than 30mins early we were still a good way back in the queue. We had also pre-purchased our tickets for the cable car on line so we managed to skip the wait too by doing this. All in all, by 9.15 we had boarded the cable car and headed up the famous Table Mt. The cable car is well organised~ the whole car spins around 360deg so no matter where you stand in the car you can see out over the city and up to the mountain. On arrival at the top we were greeted by some of the cute little Dassies (hyrax’s) and the most spectacular view over Cape Town! We spent well over an hour up on the mountain walking around its summit gazing at the view of the city (and its surrounds) from all angles. Before returning down we stopped for a coffee, a cake, a selfie (yep occasionally I do join the craze and take the odd self photo) and a shopping expedition in search of the elusive tack (can be difficult to find it in its natural habitat! 🙂 )

From Table Mt National Park we headed around the mountain to Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens. The gardens were bequeathed to the city of Cape Town by Cecil Rhodes at the turn of the last century and the gardens have flourished ever since. There is over 5 hectares of gardens~ it is most famous for its protea + fragrant plants. Walking past the fragrant area was an assault on the senses~ some very yummy smells.. in particular the smell of the pepper plant is truly indescribable… I’ve got to get me a pepper plant!

The protea area didn’t quite live up to expectation partly because many of the plants weren’t in flower. Proteas are the big pink flowers that look very similar to our waratahs and sadly most of the plants were just budding… very few flowers out in bloom! Oh well! (Mum was a bit disappointed though as she had climbed this steep hill just to see them and then….)

We returned to our flat for a rest before we headed out to test out the V+A waterfront~ the Cape Town version of Darling Harbour (a much bigger version of our Darling Harbour!) We wandered around, I bought myself a new puffy vest (it is freezing here in SA) before we settled in for an Italian meal and much reminiscing about our favourite meals and hotels on our many many travels together. I really, really need to win the lottery because I far prefer travelling to working! Anyway, tomorrow it is off to the bottom of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope!