Good hope country

What a change! We had just left the sandy desert of the Namibian skeleton coast, and find us now in flowering gardens surrounded by beautiful hills in the clouds. At the beginning of our stay in South Africa we visited Stellenbosch, which locates 120 wineries. So we had to visit some of them! From our hostel we started our wine tour in two minibuses. Six wineries were on the list, each with three or four wine tastings. It was meant to become a funny day 😉

Besides the wine, which was really delicious, the wineries where beautifully located. But for Franka the most impressive thing was the cheese buffet at Fairview. Our guide told us, we are allowed to do one round of cheese tasting, but Franka made eight rounds!!! Happy from the wine our group decided to end the day in a pub nearby.

On the next day we made our last trip with the yellow truck and arrived after 72 days of our tour in Cape Town. We stayed in a hostel just below the famous Table Mountain, where we spent the last two days with our new friends. Finally we had our last meal together in a steak restaurant, before we had to say good bye.
Being again by ourselves we actually wanted to hike up the 1087 meters of the Table Mountain. But because of our bad condition after sitting in the bus for too long and because of the heat, our initial enthusiasm faded when we arrived at the cable station. And therefore we finished the remaining 700 meters with a ride through the air.

The view from the top was just magnificent. On the one side we could see Cape Town and on the other side we could see the Cape of Good Hope. After walking some of the tracks on the top of the mountain we went back down to the town to take the local metro along the coastline to the suburb of Fish Hoek. There we met our lovely couchsurfing hosts Ruth and Lute. From their house we and the seven cats and six dogs had a great view over the bay and the ocean.

On the next morning our hosts invited us to a little tour around the Cape Peninsula. During the drive we saw beautiful little towns with imposing colonial houses, the impressing wild cliffs of the coast, penguins and the sea side town of Hout Bay. There we had fresh Fish’n’Chips and enjoyed the view over (and the smell of) the ocean. The time flew by so fast and we finished our stay in Cape Town with a visit of the Marina. Finally we went to the bus station to get to our new host near George. What happened there and later you can read in our next post.