Cape Town trip - Day 3

This was a really active day for us, we did so much! Our first stop for the day was the Castle. Not quite what I imagined, but still impressive. Unfortunately we were not allowed to photos inside the museum areas so I got a couple from the outside.

This was taken from the entrance. Wasn't it just a beautiful day?


We walked through all the museum rooms and also went in to the dark room where they use to keep and torture prisoners (yeah that's really grim, gave me the shivers to stand there, did I mention it was dark?) and then we found the stairs to the roof yay! Got some nice pics up there, including these. The entrance is on the left of the photo.


This is something you don't see everyday. In the middle is our old country flag and on the right the new one which everyone knows. I must admit, I like the new one much better. It was far easier to draw it in school than it was to do the old one lol.


We then found the clock tower. It was so hard not to pull the rope but sadly many fun things are not allowed. We did pretend to be up to no good, as my husband here is showing :).


As we made our way out of the grounds we found this little courtyard, which is what I am planning for my own home in a while... lol I wish. The water does look very inviting.


So after our visit we went back to Canal Walk where I finally got to meet one of my online friends, Tails :D. It was one of my favourite events of this trip! After a nice lunch, we decided to go up Table mountain, seeing as it was such a nice day. When we came there the wind was blowing too hard so we could not go up. We decided to go to Houtbay instead, for we wanted to go on another boat trip.

On the road to Houtbay with the town in front of us.


We went to the harbour area and saw the ad for the seal island trip. We were just in time for the last trip of the day! This is me waiting for the boat to depart.


The time we chose was also the time that the tide started coming in. So we met a few waves along the way, but it was so much fun to be lifted into the air and then falling back. A lot of screams were heard among the passengers, followed by a lot of giggles. I would just do the trip again for that part :). We passed Chapman's peak on the way out to the deeper water and was so happy to see that it was open (though the next day when we went there it was closed, figures.).



Seal island was so cool. A bit stinky, but very nice.





So yes, day 3 was very tiring, and day 4 was even better, but that is the next post :).

Cape Town trip - Day 2, part 3

I am being a terrible blogger once again :). As you saw in my previous post we went to the waterfront. After walking through the entire place we went to the Two Oceans aquarium. The tanks were really cool, though I prefer Ushaka. For some reason I did not get the nice photos I got at Ushaka, but some did come out nicely. This was the first tank we went to, and this little fellow did not want to sit still! He kept waving his claws at us and running up and down the glass, much like a budgie on a perch lol.


The coolest part for me was the penquin area (I just love them :)). This is a nice photo I managed to take.


And this is the one my husband took. He always captures the right moments...


It is not a very big aquarium it is very interesting. I was a little freaked out by these crabs though. I don't know why, but I do not like crabs.


As we went out we passed the coolest tank. It is round with a area in the middle where you can stand, while being surrounded by fish. The guy before us bumped his head real had poor guy so I made sure I don't do that. Thankfully I could stand upright in the hole without my head touching! It's good to be short somedays :) All in all day 2 was an extremely tiring day...

Cape Town trip - Day 2, part 2

So after our exhaustive little walk (is that even a word? :/) we went over to the Waterfront. Why is everything in Cape Town so big? lol We first walked through the mall they have there and I was dragged into a shop called Pastimes by my husband. I made the big mistake of glancing up to one of the shelves in the back of the shop and literally stood there staring... Figurines of Harry Potter, Hagrid, even Legolas... And... Edward and Bella! The funny thing about flying somewhere, you can't fly back with many things. I just stood there for a while, contemplating how I will get my hands on them when I was dragged back out *sigh* One day... ;) As we came out of the mall we saw some boats waiting to take people out to trips around the harbour. We happily got onto ours, and then saw we were the only passengers! Here we are, waiting to leave.


Everything went well for the first 10 minutes, and then the boat's engine started making funny noises, and then stopped. Luckily we stopped next to some seals playing in the water, so we did not really mind the delay.

After a while our guide fixed something, and we were on our way again. This was my my first time out on a boat in the ocean, but luckily I am not prone to any type of motion sickness. We went out of the harbour into some deeper water for a while, and then turned back, seeing as our guide kept running between us and the engine. It was rather dissapointing. On our way back I got another Table Mountain pic. I also got a photo of a little sailboat with a pirate flag (as circled). If I had a boat I would also want that flag. :)


We also passed something really cool. The SA Agulhas is an icebreaker that goes out to Antartica for months so it was really nice to see a famous ship right next to us.


When we came back to the docks the guide asked us to please keep quiet about the problems, as it is bad for business. We agreed, but let me give you some pointers; don't ever take the boat closest to the restaurant when at the waterfront, it sucks :). By the time we came back we were starving and freezing, so we made our way to Cape Town Fish Market for some Vegetable Tempura... yummy! After that we just strolled through the rest of the area, though we did not get to see the swinging bridge swing.


After some icecream we went over to the aquarium but that will be in the next post :)

Here at home in the present it's pretty quiet. Watched District 9 on Tuesday. I have heard so many different reactions over this movie. Some liked it, others hated it and some even walked out of the cinema! I on the other hand really enjoyed it, though there was a few scenes that made me cringe. Tonight we are doing another pizza evening with friends, but until then I gotta go fix the choas that is my house at the moment.

Cape Town trip - Day 2, part 1

Hehe, it seems I am going to have to split day 2 into three parts, just to much photos for one blog entry. We awoke the Saturday morning (22 Aug) to a very bright and sunny day. We decided to head down to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. It.. was.. huge... I have been to many botanical gardens in my time but not all of them have a big mountain on them, or crazy people jumping in the pathways... Can't take him anywhere lol


The gardens seemed to stretch on forever! So naturally we did not walk over every inch of land there, but just enough to get a good feel for the place.


I loved the first path you take when coming in, it is just breathtaking...


In the Cycad area we came accross this little guy (or girl, who knows) which was happily scrathing amongst the stones next to the path. She did not seem to be bothered by our presense, so I have quite a collection of close ups of her :).


We finally made our way up to the top of the mountain... not. I would have died. We made it to a more bearable height, and witnessed one of the cool things of the world, Japanese tourists. Gotta love them. Especially when they take photos of Egytian geese and get chased... lol So this was our final view of the morning, with sight of the last remaining clouds floating away.


Will be back with the rest of the day 2 trip soon!

Cape Town trip - Day 1

We stayed in an adorable little bed and breakfast in Rondebosch, which is about 15 minutes drive from Cape Town central. This is my husband posing at the one side of the room (he is always pulling faces on photos *sigh*)


And this is the other side of the room that included the kitchen and the bathroom which is on the left but can't be seen from here.


Unfortunately there was no stove (maybe that's a fortunate thing) so we had to eat out every time :). We did get breakfast first thing every morning, which consisted of eggs on toast, bacon, mushrooms and tomato, plus a small bowl of fruit and an orange juice.

So on the first day it was still raining, so we decided to spend the day at Canal Walk, which is a huge mall! After months of searching for prober black boots at home, I finally found them in a shop there... figures. After spending the morning there we went to the natural history museum in Cape Town. Honestly I am getting a bit tired of museums... Took a lot of pics there but nothing overly exciting so I will only share this one with you, just to show you why I will never go swimming with sharks, ever!


When we left the clouds started clearing, leaving us with this pretty picture


The rest of the week was filled with sunny weather but that is another post :)