Africa – 9th Oct 2008 – Day 39

Smoked salmon on toast in the morning sun, sitting under a pagoda of vines. What a great way to start a day. The weather was perfect this morning, so we made the most of it before checking out of our hotel. It’s a great place, our room was perfect.

During breakfast a visiting dog came into the court yard, to be met by the owners four dogs. For a while we thought blood would be spilt. Certainly teeth were on show and a lot of growling. It ended without too much violence!

We drove down the N1 towards Cape Town, but came in the wring side, so it took a lot of Fiona’s navigation skills to get us on the correct path to Camps Bay and our next hotel, The Bay Hotel.

We checked into the hotel, swapped our back room for a beach front room and then drove to the beginning point for out hike up to The Lions Head. This impressive peak, stands on its own besides Table Mountain.

We began the hike easily enough, passing a launching pad for Para gliders on he way up. We had seen a couple floating down to the bay below.

To start with, we had assumed you could not walk to the very top as it looked far too steep. However, we met a couple coming down who informed us otherwise. The hike began harder and steeper until we found ourselves by a long metal chain. Luckily for ud a local couple were about to scupper up it. They assured us it was safe, so we began our ascent up the rock face, holding onto the chain for dear life.

We made it too the top of the chain. The hike continued up very steep rock until we reached the top of Lions Head. What an amazing view of the bays below, cape town, the twelve apostles and table mountain.

We met a local chap, who took a couple of photo’s of us. He had been in the UK in March to see some football matches. He was amazed how cold it had been!!

The walk down was equally as challenging and we reached the bottom, three hours after the start.

We drove back to the hotel, shared a sandwich and then went down to the beach which is opposite the hotel. John wanted to swim in the Atlantic. However, the water was incredibly cold, much colder than the UK. It took him a while to get under the water but the large waves helped with the process.

We made our way up to the sun deck and pool area and chilled for the rest of the afternoon. It was very pleasant and the sun was not too hot.

We then made our way to one of our favorite restaurants in Camps bay called Tuscany Beach. They gave us a window seat which had a fantastic view but all the windows were open, so after a few minutes Fiona got very cold so we asked to be moved to some where a little warmer. The waiter told us they wanted to close the windows but 2 guys sitting at one of the tables had to leave before they could do this as the doors were concertinaed against their table.

We had a lovely meal, and even at the end the 2 guys hadn’t moved so they still had the windows at the front of the Restaurant open, at this point it was really cold, so we were very glad we had asked to be moved.

We got back to the hotel at about 0900 and decided to watch a video.

Tomorrow is our last day in Africa, we have had a fantastic time, we have seen so much on this leg of our trip but we are ready to come home for a few days before our next adventure to New Zealand.