Tabletop Mountain was the first stop. It would hardly could of been any other way. The mountain provides an edge to any background photo of Cape Town. Heck it sure was a great sight to see from the hostel in the morning having arrived at night not realising it was just there.
I took the easy option on the gondola for this trip up to the top. I didn't have the time nor energy for a climb up. My skill of finding a free walking tour came to the foreground. A free tour guide waiting at a sign as I walked past after already doing a loop. "Free Tour" you need only tell me once. So I used the guide for real information and escaped when I needed to move on. Alas other people just miss out on these free tours. Don't know what it was but only I and one other spotted the guy standing there. By the time I had to leave we had the beginnings of a mini tribe starting to form and follow us around.
Alas what I did learn after was when you arrive by taxi to a remote tourist destination, you need to be prepared for a negotiation before getting a reasonable fare back. Some taxi drivers tried to fleece me when I wanted to return. Wanted to charge me 160 Rand (20 Aust dollars) for a ride back to the Waterfront. It only cost me 40 rand from the hostel which was halfway to the waterfront. Ha... good luck with that I thought. In retrospect I should have done the Tourist bus loop which would have cost only 140 Rand for the day. Oh well.
The statue down at the waterfront was pretty stoked I had made it to Cape Town.
This afternoon and evening I spent catching up with a friend by going to prison. Or well Robben Island. No we weren't visiting anyone we knew. This was the prison Nelson Mandela was at during apartheid. A culturally significant history tour. Almost a compulsory tour really when visiting Cape Town.
Meanwhile the second day was the chance for Penguins to make everything right. And they did. They're given a bad wrap by Hollywood. Cast on the side of evil in Batman, and then as somewhat shady heroes in Madagascar. They actually spend a life we dream of. Or well the penguins of Boulders Beach around Cape Town do. Lay around, catch some rays. And then smile for the camera.
They only moved into the neighbourhood in the 1980s. Therefore contrary to popular belief they did arrive at Boulders Beach before the Madagascar movie franchise. The original Skipper, Rico, Kowalski, and Private have been busy since moving in. Growing the population. Tourist love them, and they love the camera. So the locals of Boulders beach are somewhat happy to share their local foreshore in exchange for tourist dollars. I was happy to oblige in developing their Hollywood careers further by taking a heap of happy snaps.
Further down the road our day tour kicked us out of the bus to work for our lunch. A bicycle ride within the Cape Peninsula National Park. Followed by probably one of my more pointless exercises ever done. We walked up to the lighthouse at the Cape of Good Hope. The view was all of 5 metres. Literally had to walk (up a hill, lots of stairs!) to the lighthouse to be able to see it. The cheaters took the funicular railway. It would be no surprise to anyone to hear that this lighthouse was decommissioned over 100 years ago. They finally accepted that it's no good to have a lighthouse which gets fogged in too much. However I would like to know who was the idiot to decide to keep building during construction. It wasn't built overnight. Surely they realised it was getting fogged in a lot.
Of course after the walk up there is always the walk down. This time down to the Cape of Good Hope. South Africa's no longer most southern point. Whoops! They only confirmed this detail after satellites were able to confirm that the most southern point is a few hundred kilometres east of the Cape. Still it was good enough for me. This is the more iconic point.
The last morning I even made time to get some shopping for warm clothes done. A sleeping bag would not be an appropriate jacket for London and beyond.
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