The Cape Point and The Cape of Good Hope.

I decided to finally post our pictures from our trip to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, which we visted exactly a month ago. It is a very beautiful place. It took us about an hour to get there from Rondebosch because there is road construction in Kalk Bay and the only road to get there is Main Road. It is a very scenic drive by the ocean on the left and mountain on the right. We drove through Simons Town and Fish Hoek for the first time and thought they were CLT’s (Cute Little Towns)- too bad they’re far from Cape Town. 

The Cape of Good Hope is part of Table Mountain National Park and costs R80 (a little over $10) each. The Visitor’s Center here and one place in Cape Town are the only places to buy the Wild Card national parks pass. We decided not to buy right then to save a little money and buy when we are more ready to do some safaris! 

Their brochure states that there are “at least 250 species of birds here…Large animals are a rare site…but there are small animals such as lizards, snakes, tortoises and insects. There are some herds of Zebra, Eland, and a variety of other antelope. Small mammals also include Rock Hyrax (‘dassie’), Striped Mouse, Water Mongoose, and Cape Clawless Otter. The area offers excellent vantage points for whale viewing. The Southern Right Whale is the species most likely to be seen in False Bay between June and November. Other species like Humpback Whale and Bryde’s Whale, seals and dolphins may also be seen…The Chacma Baboon Papio ursinus troops on the Cape Peninsula are the only protected population of this species in Africa.” 

Baboon warnings: 
“Please be aware that babons are dangersous and attracted by food. Baboons that have been conditioned to receive food from humans may have to be destroyed.

•  DO keep a safe distance from baboons.
• DO move away slowly if a baboon approaches you.
• DO NOT display food when baboons are visible.
• DO NOT open windows or doors of your car when baboons are present.
• DO NOT feed baboons. You will be fined.”

Scenic views on the way there were lovely.

Boulders Bay.

Baboon herders following the Baboons. The baboons were climbing into people' yards and holding up traffic.

Building by the visitor's center. So quaint!

  

This is dried Baleen!

The path to the Cape Point lighthouse. Baboons roam freely.

We drove straight to the light house area first, after stopping at the visitor's center. You can ride the Flying Dutchman Funicular (kind of like a rail road car going up the side of the hill), but we walked up to the light house. Even when the funicular ends, you still have a bit of a walk up a bunch of rock stairs to get to the light house, which is the highest point in the area. You can’t walk in it, but only around it. Then we walked down and around to the farthest point we could get to, Cape Point, and it is lower than the light house. We saw dassies and lizards.

Reminds me of cliff dwellings in the southwest. The photograph almost looks "tilt shift."

P looking happy. The light house is way in the background.

Me at the farthest point of Cape Point.

I love how the waves curve around the Cape Point.

Directions from the light house.

Baby baboon with a Chile Rojo.

Baboons grooming.

Rock Hyrax, aka, Dassie- look at it's feet!

Dassie in its natural habitat.

P with baboons.

Baby baboon.

A proud Agama lizard.

Agama lizard with yellow grafitti.

Leaving the lighthouse area, we were pretty worried when we were walking back to our car because we had a mini pizza (it was really yummy) to go with us and there were baboons around. The car guards and park staff warned us to be careful. Thankfully we made it to the car without incident. We did see a baboon sitting on top of someone’s car though.

We then went to some different scenic routes to the Atlantic ocean and saw the Cape of Good Hope and Diaz Cross. Diaz (or Dias, depending on who spells it) Cross is painted black on one side so that it makes a better silhouette for ships to see when in False Bay. There is a Da Gama Cross (we didn’t visit it) that is used, along with Diaz Cross, as known points in order to triangulate ships’ positions so that they didn’t crash on hidden rocks in False Bay. There are some ship wrecks, but we didn't look for them. Next time!

Dias or Diaz Cross.

Dias Cross- do you see how painting it black really helps?

Along the way we saw ostrich, zebras, a tortoise, and some other big animals (not sure what they were- any one know?). It was way cool, or as they say here, “lekker.”

Tortoise- we almost ran him over!

Zebra.

Zebra.

Is this an Eland?

It was a good day. In the next post I'll show you what our drive home looked like.




P.S. Check out P's blog to see what's going on with him!

Song of the days: Strawberry Fields Forever as sung by Ben Harper.