After nearly a day on the road between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town (roughly about 800km and normally an 8 hour drive if you only stop once or twice briefly) one starts to be in a hurry by the time you get to the top of Sir Lowry's Pass just west of Somerset West. The end destination is within reach after all. I like to pull over on top of the pass at the view point for a couple of minutes first…
Although it looks like a lighthouse it isn't a lighthouse, not quite. It does have a light though. What is it then and where did I see it? It is a beacon at the end of the breakwater forming part of the Port Elizabeth Harbour wall.
I remember the first time I went to Spier Wine Estate after Moyo opened thinking that it so doesn't fit in with Spier and it surroundings at all. But just walking past the outside and going inside to experience it are two totally different things and after having lunch at Moyo's the other day I have so changed my opinion. Its the difference between Spier's Cape Dutch and colonial look and the free spirit African feel under the ancient oak trees that make the two ideal…
Cape Point is a many historic tales and legends. In 1688 Bartolomeu Dias passed around the point in a storm without even knowing it and only got to see it for the first time on the return journey. He named it Cabo Tormentosa or the Cape of Storms. Its also off this point and coastline that the mythical Flying Dutchman under the command of Captain Hendrick van der Decken is doomed to sail into eternity. Cape Point is also one of the biggest tourist attractions…
While having lunch at the Twelve Apostles Hotel, I took a walk around the restaurant between the starter and main meal to snap a couple of pics and stumbled on their wine room. Its not so much a wine celler, as you don't go down steps into a dark stone room full of vintage wine and cobwebs, but a seperate cold room to store and display their wine in. But that doesn't matter. Now I'm not much of a wine drinker…
When you mention the word "backpackers lodge" to anybody, most people would probably associate it with "dorms where youngsters from all over the world travelling with backpacks would sleep". If that was your answer as well you would partly be right. But only partly as you could also be totally wrong. Let me tell you why. Firstly, although most people staying in backpackers lodgers are youngsters, there are also more mature people backpacking these days. Secondly, backpackers lodges are so much more…
Its not every day that I get to have lunch in a smart place like the 5 star Twelve Apostles Hotel and looking at me in my Batman t-shirt in the last picture I clearly wasn't ready for it either. The Twelve Apostles sits overlooking the surrounding mountains and ocean on Cape Town's Atlantic Seaboard just a couple of kilometres past the upmarket suburb of Clifton. The hotel with all its facilities is truly award winning and amongst their accolades are the following.Sliver's Silver…
I don't do a lot of HDR, but I couldn't help but to play around with it on this photo a bit. The photo was taken at Spier Wine Estate outside Stellenbosch overlooking the dam by the wine tasting venue.
At Cape Point there stands a little statue of a mother chacma Baboon with a baby riding on her back. Chacma Baboons (Papio ursinus) are intimately associated with the Cape Peninsula and the Cape of Good Hope. Baboons inside the Cape Point section of the Table Mountain National Parkpark has become somewhat of a tourist attraction. Round about six troops either live entirely within the Cape Point section or use the section as part of their range. The baboons in this area has…
Cape Point may not be the most southern point of Africa as many people think, but it must be one of the most dramatic spots on the South African coastline. To get to the bottom Cape Point lighthouse one has to take a footpath along the point so most people just catch a glimpse of it from the viewpoints around the old Cape Point Lighthouse. On my visit I didn't even notice the scaffolding around the lighthouse until I downloaded my…