Sorry its taken so long to update my blog... internet is pretty slow here and it took all my time to put the pics on the other day! Anyway... let me tell you about my time in Cape Town.

Loved Cape Town, our first impressions were as we drove into the city and saw Table Mountain, this immense mountain on the cusp of the city covered in clouds - as you can see in the pics. It gets covered in clouds when its windy and the South Africans refer to this as the 'tablecloth'. It looks like dry ice pouring over the mountain top its surreal!!

We didnt do much on Friday as we didnt arrive till late afternoon as flight was delayed. We checked into our hostel, the ashanti lodge which was really nice and had a stunning view of table mountain from the bar. We were sharing our room with some nice people, a lovely irish couple who were going on an overland trip up to Namibia, and a brazilian doctor called andre who was rather amusing! First day we just got our bearings and walked down the main roads in the city which were full of really funky boutiques, bars and cafes. Its quite a cosmopolitan city really. We came home and went for a couple of beers in the hostel bar, but to be honest they just made us sleepy so we headed to bed... early night as going to go up table mountain in the morning.

Saturday - we got up pretty early and the wind had died down which meant that it was ok to go up the mountain. The cableway as you can see in the pics was pretty steep... must admit i panicked a little before we got on it (something tells me that bungee jump is neeever going to happen!!) Anyway - once up the views were spectacular, you could see the entire city and out to Robben Island.

After table mountain we headed down to the waterfront which was lovely - full of nice buildings. The waters edge was flanked by gorgeous looking bars and restaurants. We saw seals in the water - tried to get a couple of pics but they seemed to get a bit camera shy! We were lucky enough to see a tiny seal come up onto the harbours edge to bask in the sun - so snapped a couple of pics of him! We tried to book a robben island tour but they were fuilly booked until Tuesday and we would have left cape town by then...oh well, gives us a reason to come back i guess! Instead we headed to town and booked a trip for tommorrow, the cape peninsula tour! Arrived home this afternoon to find giant boquet of flowers from work - lovely! Although i dont think brazilian room mate appreciated being woken up by them! Unfortunately though i cant take them with me as my backpack alone is breaking my back! But thanks guys!

Sunday was our last day in Cape town and we went on the cape peninsula tour - what a great day! First stop was Houts bay, a fishing village which was really nice and we saw some seals on the harbourside. A man was feeding one fish...apparently he came everyday at the same time for these fish... it was a rather large seal, and clearly not stupid! Next stop was boulders beach were Jackass or Afrikaan penguins live, there is a colony some 20,000 strong there, however a lot of them are nesting at the moment so the beach was relatively spacious!! As you can see from the million and one pics i took of the pengiuns a lot of them were nesting in the nearby shrubbery. It seemed wierd to see penguins in bushes and not ice! After visiting the penguins we went up to the Cape Peninsula national park were they dropped us off to do some mountain biking, which we were told would be mainly downhill!...well it wasnt! At 1 point i felt as though i was in a spinning class, but the awful thing was that i actually had a destination to reach! The winds were so strong it just didnt feel like we were getting anywhere, my helmet was too big and the wind kept practically blowing it off! Anyway finally made it somewhat out of breath! After lunch we climbed the most ridiculous amount of steps up to an old lighthouse, there was some amazing views of the cape. There were a few babboons around too - quite scary looking things, we were told by someone on our tour later that one nicked an icecream out of a girls hand! We walked to the cape of good hope which is the most south westerly point in Africa, took about 45 mins and was a good way to break in my trek shoes! Tour was great and gave us a good opportunity to see some more of the surroudning area of cape town.

Went to hostel bar for a couple of beers tonight and met two of the scariest looking south african guys you've ever seen...sorry but they were! They were hysterical though, brothers who were regailing stories of their camping. 1 of the brothers looked a bit like stig of the dump with crazy long hair which didnt look as though it had seen a brush in months, he had apparently got it caught in the tent zip the other day for 3 hours until his brother had come and had to cut him out... bless! Anyway - all in all have really enjoyed our time in Cape Town, although we are shattered as have hardly stopped! Next stop Stellenbosch for a chilled day of Wine Tasting... hard life hey!!