From Cape Point Promontory

I like the fact that Blipfoto only lets me upload one picture at a time, but days like this make the decision difficult. Despite the volatile weather, Vincent and I drove the Beetle down to the Cape of Good Hope today (down along the East coast of the Cape Peninsula and back up along the West). The first stop was Simon's Town, where we spent the morning playing with penguins on the beach and watching the surfers. Then it was on to the national park, where we saw about a hundred baboons, some ostriches, and a plethora of insects I hope I never meet again. We also had a whole cliff to ourselves on the calmer, quieter False Bay side of the peninsula, and sat for half an hour watching a humpback whale dilly-dally and make his/her way up the coast.

Other than the consistent wind, which I'm told blew 70 km/hr from late Saturday through last night, the weather changed about every twenty minutes. Sunshine quickly turned to hail, which turned to downpours, then wet wind and back to sun again. As it was also cold, there were very few people in the park, and we got to climb both Capes (this one and the Cape of Good Hope, which is smaller and within sight of it) almost by ourselves. As usual, the old beater Sony I'm using doesn't really pay enough homage to the scale of the scenery, but keep in mind that this is shot from 754 ft... the waves are monstrous, and you can actually feel the vibrations as they land on the rocks. From the beach, the water looks like a frappe for about the first half mile, and it's difficult to yell above the roar.

My only complaint for the day rests with the biblical horde of creepy-crawlies that decided to exit the water while we were climbing the Cape of Good Hope. A billion or so football-shaped, centipede-type bugs turned the beach, rocks, and parking lot at sea-level black while we were taking in the views above. Thankfully they didn't bite, because we had to Indiana-Jones-it all the way to the car with the waterbugs ankle-deep at times, popping like plump Junior Mints the whole way. However, despite the unsettling and messy conclusion, this was another outstanding Sunday that left me feeling great.