29^th May - 30^st May – Days 242-243 – Western Cape Drive-a-thon part 1 (Cape Town to Caledon), South Africa

To my mother's delight, the day we drove out of Cape Town and down and around the Cape Peninsula was the first nice day we'd had so far. It was all postcard perfect with sunshine and bright blue skies, and it seemed like Table Mountain was waving us goodbye with a very cheeky smile on, now that it had got rid of its tablecloth. Touring the Cape Peninsula in this kind of weather is not a bad alternative, however, so we grinned back just as cheekily.

The trip was enjoyed more by some than by others

We began to suspect that Tiina's binoculars were surgically attached to her eyes

The originality award goes to whoever gave this village its name...

We followed the coastline rigorously past Camps Bay and the peaks of Twelve Apostles, through Chapman's Peak drive – which is supposed to be “amazing!!” which it was, but also disappointingly short – and on to Noordhoek, cut across to the other side to the Table Mountain National Park. This is where we got out of the car to see the second most southern point of Africa, the Cape Point. (For those of you who are not in the know but curious, the southernmost point is at Cape Agulhas, about 300km further east on the coast.) There's a cable car which takes you up to the point from the parking lot, but with our luck it wasn't working so we were taken up by a shuttle bus instead. You can also walk, but as my parents were lazy and rich enough to indulge on this ridiculousness, we all sat on the bus for those three minutes it takes to get up. Amusingly, this was enough time for them to be challenged in their Swedish language skills and look troubled as there was a Swedish guy sitting in front of them. What a reward for us on the back seat! Cape Point in itself, needless to say, was awesome even if – and I quote my dear friend Inna who has been here before – “you cannot really see where the two oceans merge into one”. (As I was standing there looking out into the blue I thought of you and about where I would be without your wise words, darling. With a wicked grin on, obviously.) From Cape Point we made our way to Simon's Town for the night. Pizza and beer for dinner, and off to bed.

Generic landscape picture #88829030393774

See above

We reached Cape Point and we're STILL not killing each other! Feel the love!

In the morning of the second day of driving we still hadn't really formulated any kind of plan of where we were actually headed or what we wanted to see. So we just continued up the Cape Peninsula nearly all the way back into Cape Town and then swerved right back towards the coast again. The only short-term plan we established was that we would stop for a coffee in Gordon's Bay, which is a pretty little fishing town full of holiday homes but also has a naval base of sorts. Here people were having picnics on the beach in shorts while I was clutching onto my scarf and trying to wrap it around my neck for the third time. Still I somehow enjoyed an ice cream in the sun with no problem.

Ditto

We had received miscellaneous information from various people about whether there were any whales around the False Bay area at this time of year or not. Bizarrely, quite a few people were swearing to us that there would definitely be, even if it wasn't supposed to be the whale watching season at all yet. As we drove off towards Hermanus, “the whale watching capital of South Africa”, we optimistically stopped a few times to look out for the big swimmers, but in vain. Once we got to Hermanus and asked about the whales we got a straightforward “not yet” at least. Oh well, late lunch there with some shisha on the terrace – again, far too cold to be doing this – and a decision to carry on somewhere else for the night.

This was when I browsed through one of the tourist info pamphlets that we'd grabbed from our hotel in Cape Town and spotted that there is a casino in a town called Caledon, a couple of hundred kms inland from the coast. This revelation together with a mention of a mineral spa convinced my mother about that this was where we would be spending the night. Just over an hour later we did indeed find ourselves at the Caledon Hotel & Casino, in spacious spick-and-span rooms with heating and satellite TV. T and I made use of the large bathtub to do our washing before we all headed out to the mineral spa for a sauna in true Finnish style, i.e. sitting butt-naked in the steam room. While I had been wandering around the mineral pools a bit earlier I had spotted two ladies in one of the jacuzzis so I rang the alarm bell for the rest of us to get some swimming gear on or make it quick and out of the sauna before these ladies would run into us and turn us all in for indecent behaviour.

Karoo + phone lines

Soft-skinned and invigorated, we had dinner and then headed upstairs for some gambling. Most of us lost, some of us covered for the losses of others (I'm not boosting my own ego here by not mentioning names). Late into the night we descended from the frenzy and sunk our dazed heads into some huge and puffy pillows. I'd organised a date with my mother at the mineral pool at 8am, just in time to try it out before breakfast and check-out.

The next morning we miraculously got up and to the pool at 8am. Only to find it being drained as part of the weekly cleaning procedures, and hence out of use until the afternoon. Just when I really could have done with a nice and warm pick-me-up.