Day 90 – Cape Town, South Africa

Day 90 – April 4th – Cape Town, South Africa

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The Amsterdam would have a special guest this afternoon, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who would receive the first Shared Humanity Award from Holland America in recognition of a lifetime championing equality and peace. The event was scheduled for 4:30 PM in the Queens Lounge. It was announced that Archbishop Tutu, while present, would not be speaking. Orlando Ashford and Robert V Taylor, a friend and colleague of Archbishop Tutu, and president of the Desmond Tutu peace foundation, would both be making some remarks. Unfortunately, we would be on our all day private excursion and would miss this special opportunity. The event was recorded and we were able to watch it on the TV in our cabin when we returned this evening.

Today’s Plan

Our private tour would make a big loop to the Cape of Good Hope, with stops at the following points along the way:

• St. James Beach:
This is where they have some colorful beach changing huts like the Brighton Beach boxes near Melbourne Australia. We saw those on our 2016 World Cruise. You can read about that day here and here 

• Boulder Beach and the Penguin colony: more about that HERE 

• Cape of Good Hope:

• Natural Yarns: this is an online yarn retailer. I contacted the proprietor, Gina Ross, and she invited us to stop by her house where she runs her business and has a retail display.

• Chapmans Peak view spot:

• Mariners Wharf’s: Wharfette Bistro for lunch HERE and HERE 

• Table Mountain

Transportation Options

I chartered a 13-passenger van from Citi shuttles, which is the same company I used for the airport transfer after coming back from our Safari. The total for the van was about US$370. With seven in our group, the cost was about $55. per person. Other options I considered were the Cape Town Hop On – Hop Off bus which runs a trip to Cape of Good Hope and an outfit called Exclusive Cape Town Tours. I went with Citi shuttles because their price for a 13-passenger van was the same as others for only a seven-passenger van. Whenever I do a private tour I always try to get a bigger van than required so we all have more space to spread out.

Starting Out

Our driver, Jan, was waiting for us at 8 AM outside the cruise terminal.

As we headed off towards our first stop, St. James Beach, Jan suggested that we drive by some colorful houses in an area called Bo-Kaap. When slaves were liberated back in 1834, developers built houses in this area. They were painted bright colors to express the freedom of the new homeowners. Preservation began in 1943 when 15 houses were restored by a group of citizens. Here is a link to a file photo with Table Mountain in the background.

By SkyPixels – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

On the way to St. James Beach, we drove up to a view spot where we discovered a small outpost with a shark spotter, Liesel Benjamin. Liesel maintains a watch over the water below and keeps a sharp lookout for sharks alerting swimmers using beach flags as well as posting warnings on a web site. Shark Spotters is an organization that works to “find a balance between recreational water users safety and white shark conservation” more about them HERE.

St James Beach

St. James Beach is on the body of water called False Bay, which is huge. You can’t see across so it looks as if you’re on the ocean. The main feature of St. James Beach are the colorful changing huts right on the sand. Unlike the changing huts we found in Australia, these are open to the public and only used for changing. Individuals can’t use these as day shelters. There was an interesting sign near the entrance to the beach that cautioned visitors that this area was known to have robberies, so everyone should stay alert and to report any suspicious activity.

Boulder Beach and Penguins

Boulder Beach was our next stop, home to an African Penguin colony. We didn’t realize it at the time but when we were dropped off at Boulder Beach we were about 3/10 of a mile away from the Penguin colony, which is part of the Table Mountain national Park. As we walked down the path that connects Boulder Beach to the Penguin colony entrance we spotted numerous penguins along the small fence bordering the path. Had we known the precise location of the Penguin colony entrance we could have parked much closer and saved ourselves some walking.

Admission to the penguin colony is 76 Rand or about $5.75.

Once inside, we followed a path for about 200 yards to an observation area overlooking the beach. We were pleasantly surprised to see that there were hundreds of penguins on the beaches near the observation areas. It was well worth the time, money and walking to see them. We spent about an hour here, including all the time walking from our original drop off spot to the Penguin colony. If you started at the spot closer to the Penguin colony entrance you would probably only need 30 minutes.

 

Cape of Good Hope

Back in the van, it was another 40 minutes to get to the Cape of Good Hope. Admission to this park is 147 Rand or about $11. We were only going to the Cape of Good Hope, but Cape Point is here as well and the admission allowed us access to both. There wasn’t much of a line when our vehicle stopped to pay the admission, but as we were leaving, the line had inexplicably grown to over 100 cars.

There isn’t much to see at the Cape other than a sign marking the spot as the most southwesterly spot on the African Continent. The view of the ocean is amazing, and this marks the spot where the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean meet. If you have more time, there are some trails leading up a nearby hill that probably offer views toward Cape Point and the Indian Ocean.

Everyone took turns posing for pictures behind the sign and our photo is shown here:

Natural Yarns

Natural Yarns, in the town call Imhoff’s Gift was our next stop and was about 45 minutes away. As we were leaving the Cape of Good Hope, we spotted a female ostrich along the side of the road. I was surprised to see an ostrich as I didn’t think they were in this area.

Note: Imhoff’s Gift was named after Cape Commissioner Baron Gustav Wilhelm van Imhoff. He gifted the land where the town, Imhoff’s Gift, is located to farmer Christina Rousseau in the mid 1700’s as a thank you for her efforts to supply ships with fresh produce.

On the way to Imhoff’s Gift we stopped by two spectacular view points: Noordhoek Beach/Chapmans Bay and Chapman’s Peak.

Gina Ross runs the online only yarn shop called “Natural Yarns” from her home in Imhoff’s Gift. We contacted Gina before the cruise and she was willing to open up her home, where she has one room set up as a retail space, for the yarn shoppers in our group: Judy, Margaret, Peggy … and Rick. Gina features yarns that are locally sourced and dyed most notably merinos, cottons and mohair yarns. South Africa is known for mohair that is harvested twice a year from the angora goat. Judy assisted Rick in selecting yarn to be shipped to his Mom in California.

Lunch

The Wharfette Bistro, part of Mariner’s Wharf in Houts Bay, was our choice for lunch. Their specialty is “Fish and Chips.” Orders are placed at a counter where you then wait for your food which you can either take away or eat at one of the picnic tables outside on the covered patio.

Table Mountain

Our final stop was Table Mountain. Table Mountain is a flat-topped mountain overlooking Cape Town, rising 3,500 feet above sea level. The top of the mountain is flat, hence the name Table Mountain. Most visitors take the cableway to get to the top, but some folks hike up using a variety of trails and starting points – more about hiking HERE 

The weather on Table Mountain can change quickly and the top is often covered with clouds even when the rest of the city is clear. The clouds that cover Table Mountain are referred to as the Tablecloth. Check out the current conditions HERE  which will also tell you if the cableway is operating and give an estimate of the waiting time to go up as well as come down. Waiting times can exceed 90 minutes each way so be prepared for some long waits. You can save some time by buying your tickets online in advance which allows you to bypass the line to buy tickets and proceed directly to the line for the 65 passenger cable cars.

We arrived around 5 PM and even though there was no line for the cable car, there were about 50 people in front of us to buy tickets. I pulled out my iPad and using the free Wi-Fi in the area, I was able to buy tickets on line (price 293 Rand or about $22) and “print” the image to my iPad and save the image as a screen shot. The tickets had bar codes which they scanned off my iPad.

The ride to the top takes about 5 minutes. It doesn’t matter where you stand in the cable car as the floor rotates several times on the way up, so you will get a view of every direction regardless of where you begin.

Once at the top, there are a lot of trails to explore, all with amazing views of Cape Town below. A gift shop, restaurant and coffee bar are also available, along with free Wi-Fi.

We arrived at the top around 5:15 PM and spent about 45 minutes wandering around the various viewpoints. If there hadn’t been a line for the cable car to go down, we probably would have left right then, but at 6pm the line was listed at 90 minutes, which meant we would be ready to go down at 7:30 which was the time of the last cable car. Sitting in the coffee bar lounge watching the sunset was more appealing than standing in line, especially since they stopped letting people up in the cable car so the line wasn’t going to get any longer. About 7:20 PM we headed back to the line, which was down to about 10 minutes and headed back to the bottom.

Back to the Ship

UBER was available, and a car picked us up in a few minutes. Uber and taxi fares are inexpensive here, so don’t hesitate to use them. Be prepared with local currency as the cabs we used didn’t take credit cards.

The UBER driver dropped us off at the cruise terminal a little after 8 PM. By the time we went thru security and got back our cabin it was 8:15 – a little to late to join our table for dinner. We opted to head to the LIDO pool and soak in the hot tub.

Afterwards we got cleaned up and headed to the LIDO for a late night snack and then back to our cabin for the evening.