Day 9:

Today, most hours were spent on the road as the places that we visited were very far from each other. The two attractions that we went today were wonderful and very well worth the time - Aquila game reserve and Cape Point.

We woke up at 5am and set off for Aquila at about 545am. It was about 2hrs plus drive to Aquila. We reached around 830am. We were pleasantly surprised by their breakfast which was included as part of the total cost (initially, we had thought that only lunch was included). The ranger that we had was experienced, thankfully. He drove us around the enormous 4,500 hectares of the game park in search of the animals. He really knew the compound well. We saw many animals - buffalos, hippos, ostriches, springboks, rhinos, zebras, elephants, lions, cheetahs and leopards.

One of the highlights was that we stopped for a break around 11am plus for champagne in the middle of the wild. But of course, safe enough that no dangerous animals were close by. It was a nice experience. And the other was to visit the lions' compound in which we saw the lions from a very close proximity. We actually saw all 7 lions in the park, confined to a demarcated area. Oh, we even saw the lions mating - 5 seconds was all that the male lion needed and the ranger told us that the lions mate 50 times a day. Incredible. After the drive around the park, we had lunch and after getting some souvenirs, we left Aquila at about 130pm for our next destination - Cape Point.

It was close to 3hrs drive. We arrived at about 4pm. And even after we passed the entrance, it was another half an hour drive inside the area but the drive was beautiful, with awesome and scenic landscapes flanking both sides of the roads. But the unfortunate thing was that the visit up the summit and up the lighthouse closed at around 5pm. We managed to take the bus up the summit in time but missed the visit up the lighthouse. But it was good enough to admire the beauty of Cape of Good Hope, believably to be the point where Atlantic and Indian oceans converge. At about 6pm, we left Cape Point because we had to get out of the area by about 645pm; perhaps for safety reason otherwise it might be too dark.

We drove to Scarborough, about 15min drive from Cape Point to try to catch the sunset. As it was still early, we drove to Kommetjie which was about half an hour drive from Scarborough. In the end, at Kommetjie, the Ang family went to capture the beauty of sunset while the rest of us settled at Fisherman's Kommetjie restaurant for dinner (The Ang family joined us later). I had fish & chips and it was indeed fresh and delectable to my taste.

We left Kommetjie at about 830pm. We reached the guest house at about 850am. Francis and I had some drinks and chatted before we ended the night; I enjoyed the time of bonding and sharing. It was about 11pm when we ended the night.