Capetown farewell

Cape Town farewell

Today is our last day in Cape Town. We have absolutely loved our time here and recommend it to anyone.

The hyper-excitement of the trip eased a little after the first couple of days as tiredness kicked in from the long journey, long action packed adventure days took their toll and the heat and long days in the sun finally had an effect. But the action did not stop.

Table Mountain was one of the scariest rides of my life and has re-activated a fear of heights. The big drop at DreamWorld on steroids! Over 1000m above sea level, most of it near vertical and massive sheer cliff faces and riding alongside this on a couple of rusty old cables. Photos and video footage don’t do it justice. The 360 degree breathtaking panoramic views were barely enjoyed as we either fought our fears of falling or trudged along in the heat battling weariness.

From the mountain in the morning, an afternoon drive in the hot, barren countryside to Spiers winery and two more of the most amazing animal encounters. Petting a Cheetah inside its enclosure was amazing and learning about their life, hunting, character, and protection by use of guard dogs. The dogs are bred especially to protect farmers livestock and stop the Cheetahs from being killed by farmers. The Cheetahs are scared of the dogs by their size yet the dogs won’t hurt the Cheetahs either!

Then, refer Jack’s blog, we got to handle, feed and mix with a number of birds of prey in an intimate, almost personal, spectacular show including me holding a Black Eagle, South Africa’s second largest eagle but with the strongest talons that could easily crush my arm and have been known to bring down Buffalo. Huge!!

A big history lesson the next day with another boat trip, this time out to Robben Island for the full apartheid and Nelson Mandela tour. Just more unreal amazing experiences (and breathtaking views from the water back to this spectacular city). Such an inspirational story, sad and powerful at the same time. It is hard to describe the feelings you get being presented with the life and struggles from one of the actual prisoners describing the conditions and oppression they suffered, yet delivered with calmness and power and total lack of resentment.

Unfortunately, the cage diving with Great White Sharks that I wanted to do was out of season, so our last adventure today took us out to an Ostrich farm where we took a tour and got to feed, learn about and even ride an Ostrich! Half a dozen different types there (including a couple of Emus!) What funny, bizarre, dumb creatures.

The last day or two have been hard to fully enjoy as our minds are occupied not only with the incredible education and life experiences her in SA, but also with the realisation that Egypt was unlikely to be safe enough to travel thanks to constant 24hr CNN sensationalised news. Bloody Arabs! It is certainly disappointing in the extreme to see our trip derailed and the fact that significantly anticipated highlights will now be missed. What else do we do instead? We are currently trying to figure out how to fill in this space, and/or rearrange the whole trip. Months of planning out the window, replaced with the frantic panic to reschedule the lot again in a couple of days...from the other side of the world...we’ll see how it pans out.

Anyway, we must somehow get our heads around the wonder and excitement that await us for the next four days as we set off on our Kruger Safari!!! How can it get any better than this??!!

DB.