Cape Town - Monday 7th March to Thursday 10th March

Monday 7th March

Today was our scheduled winery tour followed at night with the farewell dinner.We were picked up at 9am by a guy who had won the first South African big bother that now runs a site seeing tour company to visit 4 wineries around the Stellenbosch region . We were joined by 2 couples from central SA who were farmers and were down for the brothers to ride in the Cape Town bike race over the weekend

Arrive back at the hotel about 5pm so quick shower and we were off to dinner with Amanda and Jan to a seafood restaurant 

 for our final dinner together which was a terrific however unfortunately Jan was not well so had toreturn  home early which left the 3 of us to battle on over wines and beers talking about the fun adventures we had over the past 8 weeks.

Tuesday 8th March

Breekie and then a late check out at 10am to travel via cab for the 5 min trip to check into our Air BNB apartment for the week . Post meeting the guys that rent it we walked back down to the V+A for a quick lunch as we were on the 1pm Robben Island tour

The hour boat ride over was very rough with a few people on pie bags then after we landed onto buses for the guided tour around the island . It was first a lepper colony from 1846 to 1931 but in the 60's a maximum security prison was build with most being political activists, the most famous which was Nelson Mamdela who spent 18 years of his 27 years in prison on the island. After the buses we got out to have a guided tour through the maximum security wing by an ex political prisoner who spent 5 years here after being arrested for demonstrating

Nelson  Mandela's cell

View back to Cape Town

Less rougher ride back to back  V+A docks for the short 15 min walk back to the unit then followed by a short stroll to a Japanese restaurant for dinner.

Wednesday 9th March 

Walked down to the V+A for breekie and then brought a ticket for the big red bus tour that would take us firstly around the various city sites and then we jumped of at the markets in Green Market square to buy a bag to house all our purchases over the last 8 weeks. Here was a free walking tour from the big red buses city office so we headed off there via another groups of markets on the way.

The tour took us through the he picturesque Bo Kaap which is well known for the colourful houses and cobblestone streets.Many of the residents are descendants of slaves from Malaysia,Indonesia and various African countries,who were imported to the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch during the 16th and 17th centuries. The slaves were known as "Cape Malays" and Bo Kaap is also known as the Cape Malay Quarter .

Lions Head mountain is in the background 

We were up the top of town so decided to finish the walking tour early and head up to Avis to check on our car booking for tomorrow followed by a walk back to the red bus office to locate a lunch spot close buy and then return to board the bus for the trip up to table mountain 

The beach areas were beautiful however not many people in swimming as the tempatures of the Atlantic Ocean is about 6-8 degrees at the moment.

Got home about late afternoon and then made our way back to the V+A City Grill restaurant for a streak for me and zebra for Joey.We made our way to the comedy club which we had booked a few days ago around 8pm to a good sized crowd. I took a photo shortly into the MC's retour one when he caught me out and promptly paid out on me throughout the night

Had an excellent time at the club as he also paid out on the black and white South Africans as did the 3 acts they had on .

Thursday 10th March 

There are a number of restaurants just down the road from us so we had an early breekie about 7.30 as we were picking up the car about 8.30 from Avis in ton. We went for the very expensive $5 bacons,eggs,mushrooms and coffee option and then walked the couple of kms into town.

With little fuss at Avis the paperwork was done within about 20mins and we were on our way to table mountain to take the cable car to the top hoping that there wasn't much of a queue as the waits can we over 60mins at times. parked the car and walked straight to the ticket office without delay and onto the cable car

We joined a free guided tour to get the history and details on the mountain then walked around to the various lookouts on a beautiful sunny day( with no wind as a bonus

Back down the mountain to head off to Kirstenbosch Botanical Garndens to mainly have a look at their cycad collection. Cycads first appeared about 280 million years ago during the same time that dinosaurs and pterosaurs roamed the earth. They are often called "living fossils" and survived the extension event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

The gardens cover 532 hectares extending to the top of table mountain and the estate was purchased in 1895 for 900 pounds by Cecil John Rhodes who on his death in 1902 left it to the people of South Africa.

The cycad amphitheatre was first planted out with 300 cycads of 13 species in 1914 and today there are about 500 plants of 28 species of Encephalartos growing in the amphitheatre with many how sporting a Centenarian label on the cycads introduced during 1914 to 1916.

The most valuable one  the Encephalartos Woodii which was the  only  clump  ever been found in 1895 by John Wood John Woodf . He also founded the natal herbarium and was the curator of the Durban botanical gardens.In 1903 he sent his deputy to fetch some of the smaller offsets and 3 of them were planted in Durban with only 2 now surviving. The plant below is a sucker from one of the Durban plants and arrived in 1916 and now in a cage to protect it against thieves with protection by motion sensors ,micro dots and micro chips .Althought extinct in the wild and bale to be breed given the only plants left are males the pollen is used in cross breeding with other cycds tomaybe one day over many generations produce a more true Woodii 

View looking down into the amphitheater 

View back to the Woodii

Came across a 50 year oldliving  fossil having a rest under the shade of a cycad whilst I spent the time looking around 

Next it was off to the tree top canopy walk

Drove home to have a short rest then walk down to Willowby's Japanese restaurant again in the V+A building for dinner . When it get busy and there is a line up like tonight , the staff come out and provide wine tasting to keep you busy which is a great idea.Post dinner we had a short cab ride home to hit the sack.