Let the tour begin!  Ok, so plans have already changed – we were scheduled for a city tour and afternoon on our own, but now we are going to the Cape today – turns out there is a marathon going on over the weekend which will make going out to the Cape impossible – thus the change.  Heck – we don’t care – we’ll go where they tell us!

We are all up and out early anyway, meeting our tour guide Charl and the rest of our group at 7:30 in the lobby.  Two couples got in really late last night and didn’t get a wake up call, so they are a little late, but no matter.  As it turns out, there are only 12 of us on the tour – a range of ages from late 20’s to 70’s, a brother and sister, 2 women traveling together and 4 couples (including us).  Should be a great little group with which to wander through S. Africa.  Charl, our tour group leader, checks our vaccination cards, then takes us into a meeting room and gives us the basic plan for today and the whole tour.  We meet each other then run up to our rooms for a quick restroom stop and we’re off!

It’s a gorgeous if not windy and cold day! The views across the bays are fabulous, the sun shining brightly.  We stop for a viewpoint above Hout bay, where we went to the seal island on our previous visit here, and took far too may pictures – it was that type of day.

Next we made it to the Cape where we rode the funicular up to the lighthouse, but didn’t do the rest of the climb.  We were quite happy with the views over the water from the lookout on the funicular level.  Then we walked down to the parking lot, again marveling at the beautiful day and scenery.

With plenty of time left over, we had cappuccino sitting outside in the sun, then met our group for the drive out to the point where we spotted some ostrich along the way and managed to take a bunch of group pictures before wandering around the rocks and parking lot area stretching our legs.

It is now time for lunch, ,and we head to Simon’s Town to the little restaurant we ate in on our 2020 visit.  This time it is an included, fixed menu of very nice salad, fish and some sweet dessert. 

Then it was penguin time!!!   So cute these little rockhopper penguins are!  I could stand out here all day watching them, but, well, we don’t have all day, and ok, even though we are outside, it is way too peopley out here – so we snap our shots and boogie!

Back at the van, there is a little market where we manage to find another slingshot.  Yay!  This one is made properly and will work better (i.e., shoot straighter) than the first one we bought.  Yep, what did you bring home from S. Africa?  A slingshot, what else?

Returning back to Cape Town proper, we visit the Kirstenbosch Botanical garden, with 113,000 indigenous plants, which is gorgeous and peaceful with a wonderful sculpture garden and this awesome tree walk which we managed to find – and then managed to find our way back out to the front of the park!

Last stop was an overlook on the seafront promenade where we watched the sunset before returning to the hotel to freshen up for our welcome dinner.

Dinner was at a restaurant called NV-80, an excellent venue with fantastic food.  Beef carpaccio, Greek salad, a tender filet of beef that melted in our mouths and an excellent chocolate fondant that was actually a chocolate lava cake.  Totally yummy.  We all pour back into the van, ready to go to bed after a long but fun day.