Tuesday 5 July 2011

Getting to the Point

Cape Point, that is!
On Saturday, July 2nd, we piled into the van with our able driver, Chris, and headed South - to the very South-western tip of the continent, as we would soon see.
  
We started with a drive through beautiful Hout Bay, which was most beautiful from a vantage point at Chapman's Peak for photos...I know I am not alone when I say that it was then that I wished we were here in January so that we could have dived in to enjoy the water lapping at the shore!

From there, we moved on to the Cape Point Nature Reserve, part of Table Mountain National Park, which stretches from the north end of Table Mountain (which 9 of the students hiked the next day, I might add!  But that is another story...) all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope, which had originally been called the Cape of Storms.  Highlights of the Point include the original lighthouse, quite high on the peak, built in 1857, and the secondary light house, erected in 1911 when it was finally clear that the original was simply not doing its job!  It was too often completely obscured by clouds and fog to be of any use. 
 
Then on to the Cape of Good Hope!  We did, of course, HAVE to have a group shot there.

Onward up the eastern coast of the Cape, with a stop at Boulders Beach where the African (aka jackass) penguins are little fazed by the attention of the paparazzi, and were happy to show off for us their fuzzy young ones, much to our delight!

And a final stop at Kalky's, a good old fashioned fish 'n chip joint with live music, the smell of the sea, and hake, yellowtail, and calamari that simply couldn't be any fresher.  A real highlight, and a recipe for a full belly after a long day of dramatic scenery!  Yum.


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