I had lived in South Africa for 2 years before I met Hannah and I was desperate to show her the country. Hannah was in her final year at uni and we thought we would take a two month break to South Africa as a reward for Hannah’s graduation after 4 years of study. We got a great deal in the british Airways January sale and booked direct flights to Cape Town for August. A month before we left we packed up our flat and moved into Hannah’s parents home. They would also be looking after Tia (our cat) who was only a year old at that point and we were slightly worried at how she would get on.
We will try our best to keep this travel journal relatively short and possibly break it up into 2-3 different blogs. We will also have plenty of travel resources available on our site for South Africa. So if we do miss anything from these blogs then it is likely to be covered there.
After landing in Cape Town we picked up our rental car and headed towards the city. That iconic view of Table Mountain quickly came into view as you travel along the highway towards central Cape Town. I was more than excited to be back!
We would be doing things old skool and we went in search of a road map book to navigate during our 2 month trip. It was a bit of a nightmare but we eventually found one and then set about finding our little airbnb in Constantia.
Constantia was the perfect place for us to spend the first month of our trip exploring Cape Town and the surrounding area before heading along the garden route towards Port Elizabeth in the 2nd month.
We had so much planned and we couldn't wait for the next day to get out and explore.
This is where I will try to condense this blog as sitting and writing a whole month's worth of activities day by day will become very boring for whoever is reading this. This is actually the second time we are writing about this trip. We originally created 8 blogs about South Africa that we published on our old website before losing them when we closed that site down.
We went to Pick & Pay which is basically Tesco and did a food shop for our little cottage. It would be much cheaper if we cooked most of our meals ourselves for the first month. We then headed to Camps Bay and explored the beaches which are overlooked by Table Mountain and Lions head.
Having a month to explore Cape Town is great as we had so much time to see so many things. We visited Bo Kaap which is the Jewish quarter which is full of beautiful colourful houses. We also saw the old star fort and central Cape Town. We spent a day hiking up Table Mountain which is incredible, we were super sweaty when we reached the top but the views are breathtaking!
We spent a day at kirstenbosch gardens. These are the national botanical gardens and we had such great weather. The gardens are situated on the lower side of Table Mountain and Table Mountain alone has more species of plants than the entire UK.
One of the many highlights of our time in Cape Town was taking a boat out to Robben Island to visit the prison there. This is the prison that held Nelson mandela for all those years. The few days before no boats had been able to travel out because of the large swell in the ocean. When we got out the swell was still 4 meters and we got splashed plenty of times on the way back. We really enjoyed visiting the prison but it was a massive eye opener visiting the cells and prison block and also the lime quarry when the prisoners were forced to work. Many had permanent eye damage from the sun reflecting off of the limestone while it was being mined. The thing that we also found interesting was that Robben Island has been used for many different purposes over the years before finally becoming a prison.
Another boat trip we took was a fast boat out to seal island. A large lump of rock just out from Simons Town which is home to hundreds of seals. This is also the famous spot to do cage diving and watch Great White Sharks. On the way back from Seal Island our boat was surrounded by hundreds of Dolphins. They were swimming along with us and jumping out of the water in all directions. It looked as if the whole ocean was filled with dolphins and it is an experience we will never forget.
The best thing about spending a month in any location is that it starts to feel a bit like home. We got to spend plenty of time visiting friends that I had made whilst living in SA. We drove north up the west coast towards Namibia and stopped at places like Darling. Darling is part of the Cape floral region and home to hundreds of different species of flowering plants. We drove further to the Cederberg Wilderness Area, endless beautiful African wilderness. We actually got stuck for several hours in road works. The roads that connect these wild areas need constant work and the long sections that are closed off while being worked on can make any journey a nightmare. We think the workmen enjoyed us playing our music loudly though.
We took 13,000 photos during our time in South Africa and even now going back through this endless amount of photos we find ones that we don’t remember taking and live a small piece of our adventure all over again.
Spending time with African penguins on Boulders beach is a must. The boardwalk area was built to keep visitors off of the beach and the penguins safe. Despite that the little guys hide in the bush and will run across the boardwalks and flag their little wings as they do so.
Looking out from Simons Town out across False Bay towards Gordons Bay Seal Island is situated. To the South of Simons Town we headed to Cape Point. Cape Point has some of the cleanest air in all of Africa. It is a national park and costs about 300 Rand per person to enter. It is worth it though as the hike to the lighthouse is spectacular. Cape Point is also the most south westerly point of Africa but not to be confused with the most southerly point in Africa, nor where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet.
Cape Town is full of incredible beautiful locations and things to do. It has fantastic beaches and one of a kind mountains.
We will detail our favourite things to do in other articles and finish our South African adventure in part 2 when we head along the garden route to explore a more wild side. We will see plenty of wildlife including whales, lions and elephants!