Postcard from Cape Town - 15 February - 6 March 2016

I had a bad start to this trip – apparently BA to Cape Town goes from the awful Terminal 3, and I went to Terminal 5.  Having got across there, Security decided to check my hand luggage manually, and the queue for that took half an hour.  The flight itself went fairly smoothly except that having offered me breakfast, they brought the juice and promptly forgot about me!  On arrival I had a three and a half hour drive to Tilney Manor in Sanbona Park, where I had a lovely room, albeit without wifi!  You have to go the main reception area for that!  Driving through the park to the lodge I saw some zebras, springbok and oryx, so a good start there!

First safari drive was a good one – a great herd of elephant and good viewings of zebras, giraffe and various antelope. We had some sundowners overlooking the elephants!  However arrived back at the lodge absolutely frozen so indulged in a hot bath and plenty of wine to unfreeze!  The next morning was excellent – we had a brilliant viewing of the white lions and saw them chase, but miss, a kudu.  Then we went on to find two cheetahs walking around very close to us with a rhino close by!  In the evening with some delightful English guests, a small herd of elephant walked right in front of us and we had another very good viewing of the cheetahs but strangely saw hardly anything else.  Thankfully it was a warmer drive. 

On Thursday morning once again strangely no antelope, but we had a brilliant viewing of the white lions, as well as a herd of elephant on the run, and we managed to find five rhino.  On Thursday evening with another new lot of guests off we went again, this time to find some white lions who were intent on sleeping, a brilliant viewing of four rhino, who were not very friendly, and lots of zebra, baboon and one or two antelope.  However we returned to the lions and they were a little more active on our second visit that evening.  We finished up relatively early with a sundowner overlooking a beautiful lake. On Friday we had a fairly quiet but very chilly morning drive finding buffalo and a few elephant, and our evening safari was very quite indeed, although some of the guests did a fifteen-minute across the terrain to see some cheetah.  I didn’t bother as I had already seen them twice!  After a chilly sundowner we set off for the lodge and got caught in an horrendous rainstorm.  In spite of large rain ponchos we all got pretty wet and rather cold, but we did see the lions by the roadside as we drove through the tipping rain. Hot chocolate awaited our return, followed by something stronger! The last morning’s drive was sunny as always but very cold indeed, made even colder by a strong wind.  We saw a wonderful sunrise and managed a good viewing of elephants, zebras and oryx, and as we arrived back at the lodge saw the large Black Eagle.

At 11.30 on Saturday morning my car came to pick me up and three and a half hours later I arrived at the Commodore Hotel.  The room was small and pokey and not up to standard - after my room in Tilney it seemed very down market! I worked on things with my tour operator and managed to move to an upper floor on the third day.  From there I had a fantastic view and had daylight in my room, which was wonderful.  I spent the first week few days soaking up the sunshine, although once again I had an unheated pool so sadly no swimming possible.  I met up with one or two friends for drinks and dinner on the Waterfront, which was fun. 

On Thursday 25^th February my new driver, Tony, took me for a great day in the winelands, where we visited Muratie, Stark-Condé, Oldenburg, Allée Bleue vineyards before ending up at Babylonstoren all in glorious weather.  We were meant to lunch at Babylon but the service was so poor that, after 15 minutes of inaction, we left and drove over to Fairview vineyard for a lovely lunch there.  Once back in the evening I went for a wander around the Waterfront.

Friday was my first slightly cloudy day, but I was out to lunch with an old friend at her lovely new home in Claremont, from where we had great view of Table Mountain, and in the evening I was meeting another friend, and we had an excellent dinner on the Waterfront.  After a quiet Saturday by the pool, on Sunday I went to lunch at Cape Point Vineyard for lunch with more friends, which was very disappointing.  We all had to send back our food and eventually walked away without paying anything!  However it was a beautiful drive there in glorious sunshine, passing the Twelve Apostles in Camps Bay, around Hout Bay and through Chapman’s Peak, with some stunning views all the way!

After two more quiet days by the pool, one exceptionally hot [32 degrees!], and two excellent dinners on the Waterfront, I met up with my driver Tony once again.  The day started off slightly cloudy, but soon the clouds disappeared and we had another lovely day, driving up the West Coast.  We stopped at Langebaan for a juice on the beach, and then went on to Paternoster where we had a wonderful lunch in a delightful restaurant on the beach called Voorstrandt.  The views were absolutely stunning.   Eventually we made our way back to Cape Town via Bloubergstrand, so that I could take some photos of Table Mountain from the beach there.  It was a great day.

My last few days in Cape Town were spent quietly by the pool and in the evening I walked over to the Waterfront for dinner.  Sadly there was thick fog on the last morning so I didn’t get outside until lunchtime for a couple of hours, and then it was off to the airport for the flight home, which was fairly painless!