© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

South Africa Travelogue

The most reasonable way for us to get to South Africa was a not by a direct flight. First we flew from London to Schipol Holland, where we had a short wait in the airport, before boarding another flight to Johannesburg. In Johannesburg our plane landed briefly to refuel and allow passengers to disembark and board the plane, before flying on to our final destination, Cape Town airport.

CAPE TOWN

We had wanted to visit Cape Town for some time and were pleased when we finally arrived. Initially we stayed at a Bed & Breakfast for a couple of nights whilst we looked round for somewhere more permanent. The B & B we chose for our first couple of nights was Carmichael House, 11 Wolmunster Road, Rosebank, Tel: 6898350. We were both quite excited to be in South Africa, and really looking forward to all of the adventures to come, and this was definitely a good start. Carmichael House is a turn of the century two storey house with six large rooms. All of the rooms were well furnished with telephones, safes, e-mail and fax services. There was a lovely quiet garden, swimming pool, and although not neccesary for us, it had secure parking too, all situated about 1 km from the Rondebosch shops. At the time we visited it was run by a lovely friendly helpful lady who had her niece helping her. Our room was huge as was the en-suite, with high ceilings and a very comfortable bed, where we enjoyed a very good, much needed nights sleep after our flight. The next day we went out in search of some self catering accommodation. We found a really great place very close to the Victoria and Alfred Docks. Unfortunately neither of us can remember the name of it, it's not listed in any of our travel books either, which is a shame as we would highly recommend it. Anyway it was a large building with lots of apartments at very reasonable prices. After being shown an apartment, we liked it and chatted the the owners, and then we agreed on a deal. We lived at this apartment for over a month. It had a separate fully equipped kitchen, a separate bathroom, and an open plan lounge, dining and bedroom area. Every day a maid came in to clean, and the bed was made and fresh towels were left. After settling in we walked the few minutes over to the Victoria and Alfred Docks. This shopping complex had lots of good shops, bars, restaurants and also a cinema. After stocking up on food, at the Pick and Pay supermarket, we got a taxi back to our apartment, we couldn't have walked as we had bought so much food. We have always and still do seem to buy lots of food, good job Richard likes cooking! I think we got a bit carried away on this first shopping trip though because everything was so cheap. At the time the GBP was so strong against the Rand, so that helped. I can remember that the price for an avocado was particularly good value, they were very large, and only about 9 pence, at that time they were about 99p back in the U.K. Although we were self catering we still ate out quite a bit. In particular the Musselcracker Restaurant, in the Victoria Wharf shopping centre, became a regular haunt for us during our stay. We ate lunch there one day which was delicious, but mainly we used to sit up at the bar enjoying a few beers. I don't know if it's the same now, but when we were there they had a large conveyor belt around which diners could sit and help themselves to dishes of lovely food from the seafood buffet, similar to a sushi joint. Typical dishes included, bread and anchovy butter, pate, soup, cold gravadlax, herring and fish bobotie, which could all be topped off with a tasty pudding. There were also regular tables where we sat and were waited on by attentive helpful staff. We are not big fish eaters (various allergies), and the staff were very happy to explain what all the dishes were and make recommendations. We spent a lot of time over at the V & A Waterfront as it was such a short walk away from our accommodation, and there was so much there to keep us occupied. There were a good choice of upmarket shops which included outlets of all of the major South African chains, we bought books, clothes, shoes, food and crafts there. Richard bought a very snazzy pair of snake skin loafers at a fraction of the price he would have paid in London. It wasn't all shopping though, we did visit the local places of interest too.

TABLE MOUNTAIN

Table Mountain is striking, South Africa's most famous feature. We could see it from our apartment, though usually the top was obscured by clouds. I don't think a visit to Cape Town would be complete without a trip up Table Mountain, we took a taxi up to the cable car station. From there we made the journey up the mountain by cable car. Apparently half a million visitors make the journey each year, so it's a good job that they installed a state of the art Swiss system in 1997 to cope with the number of people. The cars themselves are pretty impressive, the floor of the oval shaped cars is designed to rotate a full 360 degrees, which was all done very smoothly, enabling us a full panorama on the way up to the top. Cars leave from the Lower Cable Station on Tafelberg Road every day at 10-20 minute intervals. Open May-Oct 8:30am-6pm, Nov 7:30am-9pm, Dec-April 7:30am-10pm. The trip takes you to the Upper Cable Station at the northeastern end of the Western Table, a height of 1073. Once you are there you can walk along the circular path where you will see spectacular views of Table Bay to one side with the Atlantic seaboard on the other. There was a nice tea room which had good views, and also a bistro and a gift shop. It is possible to walk up Table Mountain, but it was rather warm whilst we were there, and we were far too lazy! The weather can change very rapidly too, so if you were going to walk it would be wise to stick to the simpler planned routes and be prepared for mother natures changing moods. Once we were on the top of Table Mountain we had a lovely walk admiring the amazing views and taking photographs. Table Mountain 1087m is a flat topped massif with dramatic cliffs and amazing views in every direction. The north face overlooks the city centre, unmistakable formations of Signal Hill and Lion's Head to the west and Devils Peak to the east. The west face consists of formations known locally as the Twelve Apostles. Looking southwest you will see over Hout Bay and the eastern face looks over the suburbs of Cape Town. It's interesting to think that even in the centre of a city, Table Mountain is a wilderness and home to wildlife and 1400 species of flora. Indigenous mammals who can be seen at Table Mountain include porcupines, dassies and baboons. The animals inhabiting the area are Himalayan tahrs which look like mountain goats, apparently descended from specimens Cecil Rhodes introduced onto his estate, which escaped and set up home on the mountain. We saw mainly dassies or hyraxes when we visited, lots of them all lounging on rocks basking in the sun. Dassies look like large fluffy guinea pigs, apparently they are not rodents at all despite their appearance, they are the closest living relatives of ....... elephants, strange but true! We spent a good few hours up Table Mountain before getting the cable car back down to the Lower Cable Station, from where we decided not to get a taxi home but to walk, and stop off for a couple of drinks at a very nice looking bar we spotted.

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