March 13 – Cape Town, South Africa

Today we are on a Crystal Tour that drives along the coastline to Cape of Good Hope.  Unfortunately it is rather overcast but hopefully it will clear up.  The tour took us through the Mouille Point area (which we had seen parts of yesterday).

By the time we reached the spectacular Chapman Peak Drive the sun was out and it was glorious.

We saw some baboons along the road.

We stopped at Cape Point to see the lighthouse…

and the coastline.

Then it was on to the Cape of Good Hope, with lots of crowds getting their pictures taken. 

While there we saw wild ostriches on the waters edge…

and lots of cormorants.

We stopped for lunch at a seaside restaurant near the Boulder area of Table Mountain National Park.  After lunch we walked down to a nearby beach that had a large colony of African Penguins.  They were formerly called Jackass Penguins because they bray like a jackass.

While there we saw a couple of Hyrax Dassies, commonly called just Dassies.  They are a smallish rodent that are pretty cute.

The return drive took us along more coastline...

before heading inland to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden, regarded as one of the 7 best botanical gardens in the world.  

The backdrop was the nearby mountains that really set off the gardens. 

All of the plants within the gardens are native to South Africa.  It is obvious that many of these have been exported for gardens around the world because Mary recognized many of them.

The gardens included a lot of art pieces.

We also found a fair amount of wildlife in the garden including a number of guinea hens with their chicks...

a little mouse hiding in the reeds...

and an interesting bird who was very shy about getting his photo taken.

It was a lovely sunny day the entire drive and we enjoyed the spectacular scenery that is South Africa.