Farewell At The Blue Peter

On Friday evening, September 29th, the members of our tour group gathered one last time for a farewell dinner at the Blue Peter restaurant near Melkbosstrand. "Blue Peter" is the flag ships fly in port to indicate they are about to depart and that all persons departing with them should report. (Look it up: vexillology). We were in fact all departing: turning our motorhomes back in to Bobo campers on Saturday, and then, mostly, returning to the UK. Howard and Jenni stopped over to see Dubai (we saw them there), and Don and Kaye stayed on a day in Capetown before heading on to Dubai. Tour escorts Chris and Hilary headed to Australia for another tour. Vicki and I planned on two more days in the Cape area before heading, via Dubai, to Barcelona and our "re-positioning" drive from there to Rome. But it was a wonderful farewell dinner with friends who had shared an incredible five week tour with one another, in incredible places. Tours depend much on one's companions. For Vicki and me, this tour could not have been better in that department. In addition to all the great experiences, there were great stories, great friends made, and, for us, so many great learning experiences.

Clouds draping over Table Mountain

Local entertainment

Jim and Christine's younger son and friend had flown down
from London to run in a Capetown marathon; also there. Howard,
Jenni, Bob, Kate, Marian, Dave, Christine, and, somewhere, Jim

And Hilary and Chris, Margaret and James, Kaye and Don,
Vicki, and me behind the camera

Next morning at Bobo campers; wonderful staff; I'd hoped to
look around a bit more; but we had an opportunity for a quick
get-away to pick up our rental car that afternoon; and so we
were off, again

Cape Of Good Hope

Our penultimate African tour day was another "day at leisure." Some took it easy at Ou Skip, some traveled elsewhere, and some, like us, took advantage of the opportunity to see more of the Cape area, with a drive down the peninsula to see the historic Cape of Good Hope.

Not wanting to drive through the big city at rush hour, we got up early and drove
from our northwestern beach area to the east and then south through Capetown's
vast northern and eastern suburbs; the above sign on the freeways...Capetown is
experiencing a water shortage of historic proportions...the reservoirs are down to
27% and the rainy season is over...

Table Mountain, covered in cloud

A lot of things are not working here

Near a naval base on the east side of the peninsula

Man bites dog: sub chases destroyer

Oldie architecture in one of the peninsula coastal towns

More signs for our collection

Now on the west side of the peninsula

My eyes and ears are ever attuned to the skies...and here I capture a DC-3,
certainly older than I am, approaching Capetown

Also flying is the funicular that takes you up to the high point overlooking the
Cape; really Thai'd things together for me...I hummed the opening bars of the
overture to Der Fliegende Hollander all the way

Looking back down, another of our group, Dave and Marian, are there; James and
Margaret would appear a bit later

Looking east to Cape L'Agulhas, the actual southernmost bit of Africa

Looking back north, and west

Us at the Cape of Good Hope

Hairpins on the route back down

Important document: in South Africa, traffic lights are called "robots"; seriously;
they replaced human traffic directors; anyhow, this is one of the few road
references we saw to said robots

North and east of Capetown are vast shanty towns which we passed; not to belabor
the point, but, in our opinion, things are not well here; the inequality is much more
vast than in the US

Capetown Harbor Area

The harbor area--Victoria (and Alfred [sic]) Mall--is a re-development, of course, but one of the biggest and best we've seen anywhere.

Table Mountain from the harbor

In addition to shoppes, cafes, restaurants, even a few cultural
attractions, there was plenty of live music (reminiscent here of
Tropical Montana)

Cruises to Robben Island

Sculpture

Really impressive sculpture

More performance

Harbor rides aboard the Jolly Roger

But the show-stealer was this, um, yacht,
parked outside the mall; Howard and Jenni,
real sailors, headed there first

In for some repairs; on a round-the world cruise; registered
out of Isle of Wight; crew not permitted to reveal who the
owner is

It's the Mirabella V, the world's largest sloop-
rigged sailing vessel (so it says); 256 feet long

Carries its own seaplane [I'm writing this from St. Tropez, and
there is nothing here to compare, not even close to close]--so
my new standard for yachts is whether they carry a seaplane

Inside the giant mall, which had every luxury shoppe we could
think of; impressive, in a way...; in any case, thus ended our long
but excellent day tour of Capetown