Cape of Good Hope

We started our day by visiting the Kirstenbosch Gardens. The southern tip of Africa is a unique plant zone in the world, called the Cape Floristic Region. Since it's winter, there were only a few flowers in bloom, but we saw a large variety of protea and aloe and a Cycad, a prehistoric plant that predates most plant species.

African Penguins

We then visited an African Penguin rookery. As usual, he penguins were fun to watch and so was their video "City Slickers" which won an academy award. It traced the life of 2 penguins an their baby from this colony. An oil slick threatened a third of the entire African penguin population, but thanks to heroic efforts only 5% were lost.

We had a superb lunch nearby fish wrapped in bacon, then on to the Cape of Good Hope, the most southwesterly point of Africa. The wind was wild there and the surf was high. We also went to the top of Cape Point nearby where you can view the Cape of Good Hope. On top was a lighthouse to warn ships of Bellow Rock below, a rock that just under sea level. But they had to build a 2nd lighthouse lower down because the top lighthouse was often obscured by clouds. The cape is all park land and looks a lot like tundra with the plants being unique, of course. On the way out we saw some bontebok, a South African antelope.

Cape of Good Hope

We had dinner at La Palma, a nearby Italian restaurant - a superb meal and it only cost about $25 for the two of us.