SA Road Trip 2015 Part 3: Cape Town - Jo'burg

From Mc Gregor we continued South on the N1 to Cape Town, the last planned stop of the road trip and the last official week of holiday.

Our route around SA! 

This post is about our time in Cape Town and the last days in Johannesburg

It rained only 3.5 of the 11 days we were in Cape Town, pretty lucky for the middle of winter and the rainy season. The rest of the time we were blessed with beautiful sunny days, the best way to enjoy Cape Town! The week was packed full of fun activities. Although the Eastern Cape is my favourite province, Cape Town is our favourite South African city and where most of our friends still live; it was no surprise that we had an extensive wish list of things to do and people to see.

Writing the highlights list I was actually quite amazed at what we managed to fit into one week! (And also explains why we were so tired at the end, lol.) There were still people and things we missed out on but it was a good and mostly successful attempt. Thank you to everyone we saw for making the time to see us and for the fun things we did together. We loved every moment of our time in CT and the memories of our favourite city will keep us going until we meet again.

Impromtu scones and tea at the Rhodes Memorial tea garden 

Maternity photo shoot with Bren and Kirst at 6 weeks to go!

Lunch with Bren, Kirst, Sue and Gary at Jake's on Summerley

The gorgeous view of the back of Table Mountain and Devil's Peak from Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

Dinosaurs!

We were lucky to see this little tortoise wander out of the undergrowth for a look around

King Protea in bloom

By this stage of the holiday it was confirmed that our next destination would be Perth, Australia and the visa application forms had been submitted. We were expecting the application process to take 4-6 weeks and were pleasantly surprised when our 4 year work visas were approved after only 2 weeks. Insert amazement here. However, this turn of events did temporarily put a spanner in the works as we suddenly had to plan and prepare for our next international move. Not really what we wanted to focus on while on holiday. But we manged to keep the admin to a minimum and it also worked out that our holiday got extended by a week, woohoo! We divided the extra time between Cape Town and Jo’burg with each city getting a weekend and few days more than originally planned.

Fishing boat at Simon's Town

Fish Hoek Beach

Sometimes we forget how blue the sky can be in SA.

Penguins at Boulders Beach

Misty Cliffs

Slangkop Lighthouse

Views of Hout Bay from Chapman's Peak

Lion's Head from Signal Hill

Table Mountain and Devil's Peak from Signal Hill

Pics above are from our tour around the peninsula on a gorgeous warm and sunny day.

Memorial to Nelson Mandela on the Sea Point Promenade

Sea Spray! At Sea Point Promenade

Fun activities and highlights from a week in Cape Town:

- Bumping into Sue and Matthew Huddy in Cavendish on our very first afternoon in the Mother City. Thanks for the spontaneous cup of coffee!

- A lovely evening catching up with the Patel’s on our first night in CT. Thanks for having us over, it was so wonderful to catch up with you guys and meet Payal.

- A super fun maternity photo shoot with Brenainn and Kirsten at Rhodes Mem. At 6 weeks and counting!

- A spontaneous scone date at the Rhodes Mem tea garden with Bren and Kirst after the photo shoot.

- A delicious lunch at Jake’s on Summerley with Bren & Kirst and Justin’s aunt Sue & her husband Gary. Lamb flat bread and duck spring rolls! (A special memory from one of our first dates together.)

- A lovely chilled afternoon catching up with Rob and Sue and Matt and watching the rugby.

- Two Sunday morning services at our previous church and where we got married, Claremont Methodist. Was really special being able to attend a service there again.

- Gorgeous weather most of the week.

- Breakfast at our favourite Botanical Gardens in the world, Kirstenbosch, followed by a long walk around the gardens visiting all our favourite spots on a perfect sunny day.

- A fun cell group reunion at the Homann’s house. Thank you Nikki and Andre for hosting and thanks to everyone who came! Was wonderful to catch up again.

- A day trip driving around the Cape Peninsula on a glorious sunny day. Stops along the way included Fish Hoek Beach, Simon’s Town, Boulder’s Beach, Slangkop Lighthouse, Hout Bay and Signal Hill.

- Lovely dinner catching up with Geoff and Lucy and their 2 beautiful children, Christopher and Sarah.

- A spoil ourselves full spa day at Mangwanani at Zevenwacht.

- Pizza night out with Bren & Kirst, Dave & Laura, and Jean & Lara.

- Lunch at Origin Coffee/Nigiro Tea emporium in town.

- A quick walk on Sea Point Promenade on a blustery drizzling day.

- Lovely afternoon catching up with Dereck and Nici Palmer and their two sons, Caleb and Reece, at their new house in Bergvliet.

- Fun pizza dinner catching up with Jenny & Richard Lange and Ev & Kerryn Torrance.

- Appointment with the dermatologist to check our skin after 2 years of living in sunny South America. Not exciting but necessary.

- Fun coffee catch up with Mike Gathercole.

- Lovely dinner catching up with Abi and Frank Daubenton at their home.

- A lively Friday afternoon lunch with Andrew Rowan and Brett Steyn in town.

- A fun visit with Frank Daubenton at work including a tour of the new all green Allan Grey building.

- Afternoon visiting the PRDW office at the waterfront. Was really nice seeing everyone there again.

- Spontaneous sushi date at the waterfront, just the two of us =) Was just what we needed after a busy week.

- Fun breakfast with Alex and Brett Steyn in Noordhoek on a beautiful sunny morning.

- A quick visit with Scott and Laura Lowry. Also picked up the beautiful Japanese cleaver that Scott made for Justin (check out Lowry Blade Works for more info). Thanks Scotty! We are loving using it.

- Popped into the schools bridge building competition at Canal Walk. Saw Angus Rule (from camera club days), Andrew Rowan, and Geoff & Lucy du Toit.

- Pre-show dinner in town with Sahil and Anushka.

- Theatre date! West Side Story at the Artscape with Sahil and Anushka.

- Awesome lunch at The Spice Route in Stellenbosch with Bren & Kirst, Rob & Sue, and Sue & Gary. Was such a lovely afternoon in the sun with pizza, craft beer, wine, ice cream and home-made chocolate.

- Walking the doggies in the park with Bren and Kirst after Spice Route lunch.

- A morning at MCB at UCT saying hi to people from Bron’s university days.

- Lunch and tea at the Vineyard Hotel.

- Farewell dinner with Bren and Kirst at Hussar Grill in Rondebosch. Ostrich steak!!

Lunch at The Spice Route: 

View of the mountains in Stellenbosch

Bron and Sue

Rob and Matt

Feeling for the kicks!

The after lunch glow

Bron, Kirst, Bren, Justin, and Gary

Ice Cream time! 

Taking the doggies for a walk. Bren and Maggie.

Charlie looking for squirrels in a tree 

Bren and Charlie

Bron, Justin, and Kirsten

We were originally going to fly back to Jo’burg from Cape Town since it is quite far and time consuming to drive. But at the last minute it worked out better for us to drive back. We left a rainy Cape Town early on a Tuesday morning and headed North on the N1. We reached Bloemfontein in good time and decided to push through and do the drive in one day. The roads were in a much better condition and much quieter than on our journey from Uvongo to St Francis Bay enabling us to do the drive in one day. The 1400 km took us 15.5 hours and we were glad to be safely on the other side! Our road trip around the country was now complete. Thank you for the hot meal and good company waiting for us Dazz and Clauds!

Highlights and activities of the last days of holiday in Jo’burg:

- A slower post-long drive day catching up with ourselves and a mountain of laundry.

- Sushi dinners with Dazz and Clauds and Monet. And wine.

- Catching up with Monet, one of Bron’s best friends from school.

- Tea and cake with Bron’s Uncle Hilton and meeting his two playful and energetic miniature dachshunds.

- (Re-)Packing all our bags and getting organised and ready to travel.

- RocoMamas Smash Burgers. And wine.

- A really fun day chilling with Dazz & Claudia, Craig, and Micaela. And a last braai!! And wine. Of course. Was epic, thanks guys.

- A super fun afternoon playing games with my precious 4.5 year old niece Micaela. Was so wonderful spending time with you Mickey Moo, thank you for playing with us =)

Sushi!

Justin, Monet, Claudia, Darrell, and Bron

Siblings!

Darrell, Bron, and Craig

A super fun afternoon playing in the garden with Micaela

And then it was our last day in SA. There was last minute laundry and packing and washing of soles of shoes. Monet popped round for a last cup of tea with chocolate croissants. There was chilling outside with Dazz and Clauds and a last snacky lunch of left over braai goodies.

And then there were tears.

The final goodbye had arrived and we all found it hard to walk away.

Until next time Mzansi. Hamba Kahle. Go well.

Thank you to everyone who made our time in SA so epic and memorable. And an equally special shout out to those that we missed.

Some thoughts about our time in South Africa in general:

While we were planning our SA Road Trip we became aware again of the level of crime in the country and we became quite nervous about our safety, especially whilst in Jo’burg. While we do think crime has increased since we left 4.5 years ago, we didn’t feel unsafe at any time. It felt the same as when we were living in the country; this was sad and re-assuring at the same time.

We were also nervous about load shedding and the energy crisis. However, this also didn’t really affect us. There was less load shedding than we expected and what there had been in the weeks leading up to our holiday. And we were mostly able to plan around it. Maybe we were lucky. For my international friends, load shedding is when the energy provider Eskom, also affectionately known as Eishkom, is not able to meet the energy demand and turns the electricity off country wide in a systematic and step wise fashion, every day, throughout the winter. And for this fantastic service they want to increase the price of electricity by 30% or something crazy. 

When we visited Cape Town in Feb/March 2014 we were quite amazed that literally nothing had changed since we had left 3 years previously (except for the re-naming of one street which doesn’t really count). This time we noticed quite a few changes. New buildings had popped up everywhere, some shops/ restaurants/wine farms had closed/opened/changed and the city felt a bit different. There has also been an explosion in the craft beer scene, the most notable being the Cape Brewing Company.

Overall we found the rate of change to be slow and the gap between rich and poor still large and only growing. Cape Town still feels segregated with the Southern Suburbs feeling predominantly white. It breaks my heart that the same homeless person is still on the same street corner 4.5 years later. At the same time there are also lots of stories of hope and people helping those in need. Mostly things feel like they are carrying on the same as they were before with the occasional drama inbetween such as the ongoing Nkandla scandal, and the Rhodes Must Fall campaign at UCT recently briefly shifting the limelight from the usual political nonsense. 

As always, we hope for better for our beloved country and we pray that one day soon she will have good leaders.