The V & A

We finished our stay in the Western Cape on the V and A (Victoria and Alfred) Waterfront in Capetown this afternoon. The far eastern point of Table Mountain is where we ascended yesterday and the semi circular building ( mid shot) is where we had dinner on our first night. It's a busy hub with shopping malls and restaurants and is currently hosting the Volvo round the world yacht race.

We started the morning at the South Africa museum in the Company's Garden. It's a natural history museum and was very interesting. The two main highlights for me were the wall art pieces retrieved from caves in the Eastern Cape. The art works were of bush people and elands in the main and were dome by the San and Kohsan, the indeigenous bush people from the cape. The next was an African wildlife photography exhibition! You can imagine just how good that was. Fabulous.

We drove through the Bo-Kaap district with its amazing coloured houses which was the original settlement of Indonesian slaves brought in by the Dutch. It is here that the Cape Malay cuisine originated with dishes like Boboti. Delicious, I had a Boboti wrap and salad for my lunch yesterday.
We then headed around the Cape Point peninsula again to visit Camps Bay which is a trendy and up market holiday and living area, to view the beautiful beach and the Twelve Apostles, rocks that lead down from Table Mountain. We then continued to Chapman's Peak scenic drive. This area has been found to fit exactly with a part of South America in shape, rock formation and flora, reinforcing the theory of Gondwanaland.

The views were great but where we pulled off above Hout Bay there were some people selling their home made articles, as there often is, but I was really impressed with one lot of art work all made from drinks cans. One in particular was of the whole of Africa made up of metal homesteads. It glistened in the sun. Others were of streets or townships. Too big to bring home though they were much admired. ( See Flickr album)

Late afternoon we left for Johannesburg where we were treated to a lightening storm from the air. Now settling down for the night in Pretoria. Felt very sad leaving the Cape.

Thanks for your comments, wifi has been very limited (500 mb!) so sorry I have not been commenting