Dec 26, Monday

Dec 26, Monday

Today was the day I went out of Cape Town driving south to visit the Botanical Gardens, and then to the very southern tip of Africa to see the Cape of Good Hope.   I have to admit that I had 4 or 5 tourist detours along the way because of poor signage, but after stopping twice to ask directions, I was back on the correct route.

 Along the coast, tandem parasailing !

   Some of the paths in the botanical gardens

 

 Varieties of white lilies

 

 Absolutely breath taking !

 Huge twisted tree

  Mandela's Gold, a variety of Bird of Paradise developed in this botanical garden

 

More paths within the gardens

  Berries within the flowers !  Sorry, no name tag to refer to

My first sight of the Indian Ocean was thrilling I must say and being at the Cape of Good Hope, which played such an important role in world history, was a BIG checkmark on my bucket list.

  First sight of the Indian Ocean,  which turns out to be False Bay, and not the Indian Ocean at all ! ! !   :-(

 Simon's Town on the other side of the bay.

 Simon's Town

  Looking back at False Bay

  Is that a penguin on the rock ?   Zoom not good enough to tell.

  Within the National Park, on the way to the Cape of Good Hope.   All natural African vegetation in this area. 

  From the parking lot, a look up at the lighthouse.   Funicular from the parking lot to below the lighthouse.

  Made it up to the lighthouse

 The view on the Atlantic side

 The view on the False Bay side

  A look back on the False Bay side

  From the Upper Funicular landing, looking down at the parking lot and the long line of vehicles along the road

  The beach on the Atlantic side

 Leaving the park, the clouds are moving in

  A look back at the Atlantic side, towards the Cape of Good Hope

The drive back to Cape Town took more than 2 hours due to traffic jams on every single road.  Everyone who had gone to the southern beaches for the day were heading back at the same time.  For more than ½ and hour in stop and go traffic, we only covered about 2 kilometres.  

 Little boys waving at the cars stopped in traffic beside their community

  Bumper to bumper traffic

  From the top of the ridge, looking down at the Ocean around Cape Town

I checked my map to see what alternate routes were available, and I ended up deciding to come back inland and taking Highway M3 to come back.   It was slow going at first, but when we hit the outskirts of Cape Town we were finally on a divided highway/parkway that moved and it was a beautiful drive through tree covered areas.  You could not tell you were in the city !  Sorry no pics of this part.