Day 2

Monday morning. The start of the working week. The home of bleary eyes and strong coffee. However, thankfully for us, this particular Monday was a public holiday in South Africa, so this afforded us an extra day to explore Cape Town. We assembled, eager and sprightly, at a comfortable 10am after a delicious hotel breakfast (or a couple of Huel bars depending on who you ask!) and jumped into the minibus to set off on our tour of Cape Peninsula. Yesterday’s hike up Table Mountain didn’t seem to be causing too many issues with the legs – we’re obviously fitter than we thought!

In the morning we drove down the eastern side of the peninsula and stopped off at Boulder’s Beach in False Bay, home of a colony of African Penguins (also known as Jackass penguins due to their distinctive donkey-like bray). We walked above the beach on boardwalks and observed the penguins doing their thing. James, Ewan, Tom, and I went down to the beach to try to swim with the penguins...without wetsuits. The sea was breathtakingly cold and the penguins too shy and smart to want to swim with us unfortunately! On a sad note, the number of wild African penguins is declining due to multiple human-induced factors and the species is currently classed as endangered. It brings home the importance of changing the way we humans interact with the natural world.

At Boulder’s Beach we met Pieter Levecque and his two kids. Pieter is an academic at the University of Cape Town and helped organise the trip. They joined us for the next stop on the tour of the peninsula: Cape Point. At Cape Point we had a quick lunch in the presence of some hungry, aggressive birds and then walked up to the old lighthouse (in use from 1860 to 1919) at the top of Cape Point promontory. From here we walked the 2.3 km to the Cape of Good Hope, the most south-westerly point on the African continent. The Cape of Good Hope is often erroneously believed to be the most southern point of Africa and the meeting place of the Atlantic and Indian oceans. In fact, the most southern point of Africa is Cape Agulhas and the meeting place of the two oceans fluctuates between the two Capes. There’s some good pub quiz knowledge for you! It was nice sitting on the rocks with the waves crashing below and looking out to sea with the knowledge that the next piece of land, 4000 km away, was Antarctica. We spent a while in silence soaking in the natural scenery around us.

At Boulder’s Beach we met Pieter Levecque and his two kids. Pieter is an academic at the University of Cape Town and helped organise the trip. They joined us for the next stop on the tour of the peninsula: Cape Point. At Cape Point we had a quick lunch in the presence of some hungry, aggressive birds and then walked up to the old lighthouse (in use from 1860 to 1919) at the top of Cape Point promontory. From here we walked the 2.3 km to the Cape of Good Hope, the most south-westerly point on the African continent. The Cape of Good Hope is often erroneously believed to be the most southern point of Africa and the meeting place of the Atlantic and Indian oceans. In fact, the most southern point of Africa is Cape Agulhas and the meeting place of the two oceans fluctuates between the two Capes. There’s some good pub quiz knowledge for you! It was nice sitting on the rocks with the waves crashing below and looking out to sea with the knowledge that the next piece of land, 4000 km away, was Antarctica. We spent a while in silence soaking in the natural scenery around us.