Since our trip to Australia, 2.5 months seems like a long time to be at home, so we’re making up for it with another trip very far away.
We set off on a mild, dry and brown winter afternoon from Calgary – en route to South Africa with not only myself and Ellie, but my Mom too! She’ll turn 75 on our trip and has always wanted to visit Africa, so no better time than now!
After a long but fairly uneventful journey via Amsterdam, we arrived in beautiful Cape Town late at night. We awoke to this view of the city and Table Mountain from our room. Very nice!
Our luggage didn’t make the very short transfer in Amsterdam, so my Mom and I walked over to the shopping centre in the V&A Waterfront after breakfast to pick up a few things. Everywhere you look in this area there are iconic views.
Table Mountain was still mostly cloud free in the early afternoon , so we headed up to the Cableway. Almost no line being a weekday, so nice!
The Tablecloth (clouds generated by orographic lift of moist marine air) were starting to spill over the east end of the mountain, which was pretty but we hope it would hold off from our side.
We had pretty good luck today! Here’s a view down to Camps Bay.
And down the Twelve Apostles.
We were never completely socked in for more than about 30 seconds or so and it was cool to be enveloped in silent, swirling mists rushing past you. Ellie loved this.
Happy Birthday Granny!
After Table Mountain, we went and picked up a rental car for the next couple of days to drive to Simons Town about an hour south on the Cape Peninsula. Our home for the next two nights was a B&B I’d stayed in previously in 2022 and I knew my Mom and Ellie would like it.
We had a delicious birthday dinner for my Mom at a restaurant in Simons Town that Ellie, Blanka and I had been to before at Christmas 2019. The food was excellent and the place brought back good memories.
Baboons are plentiful in Simons Town these days and a band of them roamed down the street in front of the restaurant near the end of our dinner. They walked along the top of walls, on roofs, crossed at the crosswalk, and ambled down the street, unbothered by people.
The breakfast at our B&B, A Boat House, is not only excellent but the dining area has a great view of False Bay!
Of course, the main attraction in Simons Town are the penguins of Boulders Beach. It’s hard to get enough of them.
The population at Foxy Beach seemed to be as robust as ever based on my previous 2 visits here in 2019 and 2022.
We also saw a dassie.
But we didn’t see any penguins at all at Boulders Beach proper. Just some beach bathers of the human sort. Regardless, it’s a beautiful spot.
Simons Town has some really colourful flowering bushes which combined with the deep blue sky make it feel very tropical (although it’s not).
There was a construction project going on next door to our B&B which on a windy afternoon filled our bathroom with dust (the closest window to the open pit).
We went to a different restaurant for our next dinner which was also good – and inexpensive – this fish and chips plate was about $8 Canadian. My Mom had a roti plate which she also enjoyed.
Heading back to Cape Town, we took the very scenic Chapmans Peak Drive that hugs the cliffs between Noordhoek and Hout Bay.
Then stopped in Camps Bay to walk around, check out the beach, and have a little lunch. I think it’s one of the most beautiful urban neighbourhoods in the world.
We recreated a photo from our visit in 2019 on “Royal View” – an art installation of 2 throne like chairs side by side on the beach, looking towards the Twelve Apostles above the city.
We finally got our luggage delivered to our hotel, the same one we’d stayed at the first night. It was a relief to get all of our stuff back after anxiously tracking it by Air Tag for the last 2 days.
Curiously, a train full of tourists emptied its load right in front of our hotel. I had no idea this was even an active rail line. Who knew!
Back to Camps Bay for dinner at a lovely seafood and sushi restaurant – hard to beat the seafood in South Africa and it certainly didn’t disappoint.
We walked off a bit of the dinner down Victoria Road as the sun set and bars picked up the pace for the evening. What a great few days in the Cape Town area – it remains in my top 3 favourite cities anywhere.
An early morning start (no traffic on the N2, yay!) brought us back to the airport and on our way for a flight to the north east corner of the country.
Before we took off, I spotted this super cool Ilyushin IL-76 that was here on our first trip in 2019 – it shuttles visitors to Antarctica!
See you next time, Cape Town!
Ellie's Adventures 