Cape Point

We’ve spent the last few days exploring the Cape for which Cape Town is named. Our first stop was to see yet more penguins! This colony live at Boulder’s Beach, and are the other of the two land-based African penguin colonies. These penguins were a lot less smelly than the penguins at Betty’s Bay, possibly as there are fewer of them, and they live on the beach, but whatever the reason we were grateful! The penguins were not the only interesting animals we’ve seen on the cape so far. When driving down to Cape Point on the south of the cape we passed numerous signs about the dangers of feeding baboons. A few miles on and we spotted three of the men they employ here to ‘protect’ tourists and motorists from the baboons. All three of the men had wooden sticks, which they smack on the ground near the baboons if they’re ‘misbehaving’! A few metres from the three men we spotted a group of baboons lying by the side of the road in the grass. A couple of the larger baboons were walking around predatorily, eyeing up the cars that had stopped to take pictures. The baboons are far from stupid and know that both humans and their cars are often a brilliant source of food. Consequently, we stayed in our car with the doors locked and windows closed, however some silly tourists weren’t so sensible, leading to a little baboon tourist chase, that was brilliant entertainment! We also got to see firsthand how sneaky the baboons can be, when one of the larger ones walked up to a parked car and tried first the front door and then the back door to see if it could get in! Amazing to watch! As well as baboons chasing humans, we watched as three of the younger baboons fought each other, rolling and jumping all over the place. We also saw a tiny baby baboon, who was playing on the other baboons whilst they were being groomed!

After watching the baboons we headed south to the Cape of Good Hope section of Table Mountain National Park. The Cape of Good Hope itself is a specific point within the park: the most south-westerly point of the entire African continent. In addition, the park is home to Cape Point, which is commonly mistaken as the most southern point in the continent, as well as being where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. However, the Cape holds neither of these titles, but is more commonly visited than the Cape that does (Agulhas), being far more picturesque.

On our drive back north towards Cape Town we travelled along Chapman’s Peak Drive, which is apparently one of the world’s best coastal drives. The drive took us to first Hout’s Bay and then Camps Bay – two of Cape Town’s more affluent suburbs, both of which are beach towns. Although both towns are perfectly lovely, it is their setting against Table Mountain and the Twelve Apostles that draw the crowds!