Clear blue skies and no wind – ideal for Table Mountain trip. Saw Dave Fenton again at his flat in Tokai for coffee, the splendid view and more tips on fine dining at our next ports of call.
Arrived at Table Mountain and groaned as we saw how far away we would have to park. Arrived near ticket office with intention of dropping off John and going off to park the car. But a friendly warden, Sebastian, recognised John as a ‘nice guy’ and offered us a disabled parking slot and fast tracked us to the ticket office!!
Smooth ride up in cable car which rotates so everyone gets a chance to see the views on the way up – stunning – and none of those scary bumps over the pylons you get on ski-ing cable cars – although we did come to a sudden stop with a ‘power outage’ for a few seconds and the ‘driver’ cheerily kept making sure we were all OK.
Impressive walk across the top of the mountain – colourful flora, lots of lizards and – I’m running out of adjectives – phenomenally clear views over Cape Town and along the coast right down to Cape Point where we’d been on Tuesday.
Stopped for petrol and a swarm of guys set to and washed and dried the car in the time it took us to fill up and pay!
A bit of panic when we thought John had lost his phone so phoned Dan (having had to charge my phone from John’s whizzy mobile charger) to arrange to bar it,, but a few miles down the road it must have dislodged from its hiding place in the car, so panic over.
Long drive to Montagu and our next B & B at Montagu Vines. The ‘bird tree’ was full of ibis – 6 varieties apparently – quite a sight. No-one knows why they settle there particularly. Then over the bridge which collapsed last November in flash floods which effectively had cut off our B & B for 3 days and ruined the vines.
Richard offered welcome carafe of the white house wine on the terrace.
In the garden of Jessica’s restaurant for a delicious meal of tiger prawns/salmon crab cakes, Karoo lamb/trio of lamb ostrich and kudu (antelope) – all exquisitely served with delicious understated sauces.