One of my favorite spots in Cape Town is the Rhodes Memorial on the slopes of Table Mountain. The monument was erected in memory of Cecil John Rhodes (1853 - 1902). Rhodes was an English born South African businessman, mining magnate and politician. He was Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 and Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe and Zambia) was named after him. The memorial was built in the shape of a Greek temple. There are 49 steps (one for…
When the sun sets in Cape Town, many residents and visitors flock to the Atlantic Seaboard to see the sun disappearing behind the horizon of the Atlantic Ocean.A very popular spot to go and see the sun set is from Signal Hill There are normally a couple of tourist buses with hordes of tourists aiming their cameras westward. Looking east from Signal Hill you can see Table Mountain with Devil's Peak flanking it. The afternoon I went up to see…
Today is the last day of our tour and we will make visits to the other two big tourist attractions in Oudtshoorn.Our first stop is the world famous Cango Caves. Situated about 20kilometres outside of town in the Swartberg (Black Mountains), the caves are the best known caves in South Africa and one of the most visited show caves in the world. The word Cango is a Khoisan word that means "water between hills". The Khoisan used to live in…
Yesterday we got as far as Mossel Bay. From there to Cape Town you drive through the Overberg which is mainly farming country and not much else. If you cross the Outeniqua Mountains from Mossel Bay (on the Robertson Pass) and George (on the Outeniqua Pass) you get to the Klein Karoo. Klein comes from Afrikaans and means little while Karoo comes from the Khoisan language and means "Place of thirst". The Klein Karoo and in particular the area around…
If i suddenly dissapear for a couple of posts, don't worry. I seem to be loosing bandwidth somewhere and have a feeling that somebody is tapping in from somewhere. I'm hoping the problem will be sorted out soon. Anyway, on with the tour. One of the most popular tourist attractions on the Garden Route is the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe steam train. Its usual route between George and Knysna was damaged very badly a couple of years ago and its furure…
My apologies for missing yesterday's post, but I had some problems with my internet. All fixed now and back to our tour. The next town on the tour is supposed to be the millionaires' playground of Plettenberg Bay. Unfortunately I don't have any good digital pics of the town so we will bypass it and move on to the town of Knysna.Knysna have twice been voted South Africa's favorite town and is the most popular town on the Garden Route.…
Seeing that we started touring down the Garden Route I decided to just continue and show you why it is such a popular tourist route. I may interrupt the tour every now and then to do other posts, but we will keep on making our way westwards.The next stop after the Tsitsikamma National Park and the Bloukrantz Bridge is Birds of Eden, situated just outside the town of Plettenberg Bay. Birds of Eden is the World's Biggest Free Flight Bird…
The Garden Route is not just a very scenic area but also an adventure junkie's playground with near countless activities to be done by thrill seekers of all shapes and sizes.The ultimate adventure activity can be done at the Bloukrantz River Bridge in the Tsitsikamma. The river is also the boundary between the provinces of the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape. Here you will find one of the highest commercial bungy jump sites in the world.Measured at 216 metres…
Although the Table Mountain National Park is not a game reserve, it does have some game in the Cape of Good Hope section of the park. Land mammals include zebra, eland and baboon, while dolphins and whales are often spotted along the coastline. Many bird species can be found there as well, from the world's biggest bird, the ostrich, to sometimes antarctic birds making land here. But for all the scenery and everything else there is, its the little things…
At the tip of the Cape Peninsula, about 50km from Cape Town, you will find two of South Africa's best known points or capes.The first one is The Cape of Good Hope, the most South-Western point of the African continent. Just over 2km away is the second, and more spectacular point, Cape Point. Both the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point offer spectacular scenery. Indeed, the whole of the southernmost portion of the Cape Peninsula is a wild, rugged,…