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| Ali and Martha on top of Table Mountain overlooking Cape Town and Table Bay |
It was such a beautiful day in Cape Town when we flew in on Wednesday, 20 May, that as soon as we had checked in at the Peninsula Hotel, we went out and hopped on the red double decker hop-on hop-off city bus tour and took it first to the V&A Waterfront, where we found South African pizza for lunch, and then to the Cable Car ride to the top of Table Mountain, where we enjoyed the aerial view of Cape Town, the Cape peninsula, and the Atlantic Ocean and its beautiful bays, until sunset.
On Thursday, we continued our Cape Town city tour by hopping off at the Greenmarket Square African flea market for souvenir shopping and through the wine country to the World of Birds at Hout Bay where we spent an hour seeing the African birds of all kinds and sizes, including a talking crow, and spent almost two hours in the Monkey Jungle with dozens of friendly squirrel monkeys and two squirrels. The monkeys crawled all over us, especially Martha, whom they seemed to have a special affinity for. We ended our day at the largest and most elegant shopping mall in the southern hemisphere, Canal Walk at Century City, and had dinner at the Cattle Baron and enjoyed the flambéed chateaubriand steaks which by our taste are the best anywhere, followed by some Italian gelato.
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| Martha and Monkeys in the Monkey Jungle |
Friday was our Cape Point tour through Muizenberg, Kalk Bay and Fish Hoek to Simonstown, where a colony of 2000 African penguins entertained us for a long time in their natural habitat, Boulders Beach on the Atlantic Ocean. There were mother penguins nesting on their eggs while their mates brought them more and more sticks for the nests and other mothers with furry, gray chicks recently born, who were still finding their way around the colony. From Simonstown, we made the drive out to Cape Point, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans come together, and we had our photo taken at the Cape of Good Hope and took the funicular and hike to the lighthouse at the point. As we drove, we saw a lone baboon at the side of the road having a snack. Bob said, “Where there is one baboon, there has to be a whole troop.” Just a short way up the road on the opposite side, we saw the rest of the troop – three more large adult baboons and seven very small monkey-size offspring who were running, jumping, wrestling and playing leapfrog right at the roadside as we parked and watched. We had a beautiful drive above Noordhook Beach, where we saw a couple galloping on horseback along the beautiful beach, and around the scenic road near the top of Chapman’s Peak, arriving at the lookout points over Hout Bay just about at sunset and returning home on Victoria Road around Camp’s Bay. Another perfect day, and we ended it back at the V&A Waterfront for an outdoor steak dinner at Balthazar’s and a ride on the gigantic Cape Wheel ferris wheel.
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| Ali and Martha with the penguins at Boulders Beach |
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| Martha and blooming aloe plants at Cape Point lighthouse |
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| Bob, Martha and Ali at the Cape of Good Hope, southwestern-most point of the African continent |
We got up Saturday morning and drove two hours over the mountains via Sir Lowry’s Pass to the quaint whale-watching sea town of Hermanus, where we enjoyed the breathtaking views of the ocean from the rocky cliffs and met former Cape Town stake president Geoff Spires and his wife Angela for dinner overlooking the sea from the Lemon Butta restaurant and enjoyed baby kingklip, a delicacy from the local waters. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit with the Spires, who now reside in Hermanus in the same home with their two sons and six grandchildren. Our B&B Hotel, Misty Waves, was extremely elegant and gorgeous and very inexpensive. It was so nice, we had a very hard time getting Ali to leave her room to go to dinner. It was a real princess room, as shown in the photos, and the sea views were amazing.
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| Ali overlooking Hermanus Bay |
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| At Hermanus Branch for church on Sunday with Angie and Geoff Spires, former Cape Town Stake President 9 years ago |
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| Ali's room at Misty Waves B&B |
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| Ali's cupcake under glass in her room at Misty Waves |
We enjoyed Church at the Hermanus Branch on Sunday, meeting up with a lot of locals who Bob got to know when attending here 7-10 years ago as mission president. In those days, there were 10-20 attendees. These days they average close to 50 when everyone is in town and the McKinnons have all their grandchildren visiting. Winston McKinnon, who was the branch president in Hermanus for 7 years, is now the stake patriarch and his wife is the branch organist, taking over from his mother-in-law who just turned 100 years old and was there on the front row. President Spires took over as branch president when he moved back from England a few years ago. His son Adam is ward mission leader, his son Mark is Elders quorum president, and their wives, each with a baby and two older children, are involved with the auxiliaries. The meetings were excellent. Ali went into the Primary and loved working with the kids the last two hours. We took a photo in front of the “chapel” (actually a warehouse in the industrial part of town), then we were off on the Garden Route around the Cape.
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