Days Four and Five in Cape Town, Constantia and Stellenbosch Wine Routes!

Click here for the previous post in this series: Day Three in Cape Town - Two Oceans Aquarium and the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

A wet and rather dreary two days are next! Unfortunately Day Four was quite a bummer as gale-force winds, overcast skies and rain meant our Robben Island ferry was cancelled yet again. Most outdoor activities were also a no-go so we went to brush up on some history at the nearby District Six Museum (R 30 or SGD 3.54 entry, additional R 15 or SGD 1.77 for a guided tour):


District Six Museum, Downtown Cape Town
Like us, you might have probably heard of the Apartheid policies in South Africa which promoted White Supremacy above all other ethnicities, in place until the 1990's. Visiting one of the many museums dedicated to the memory and healing of that racist era is a good way to sort of feel what it might have been like living in South Africa at the time.

The District Six Museum is dedicated to one aspect of Apartheid - Forced Removals. The government put urban planning policies in place dictating that whites and non-whites were to live in entirely separate neighbourhoods, so when they declared District Six a white-only neighbourhood all the non-whites were forcibly evicted from their homes and moved to other newer but crappier townships. Chilling stuff.


District Six Museum, Downtown Cape Town
The museum itself isn't that big, so once we're done we take a half hour drive to Hout Bay to see if we can catch one of the many Seal Island Boat Tours. There are two huge Cape Fur Seal colonies on islands not far off the Cape Peninsula, one of which is barely a 20 minute boat ride from Hout Bay. Sadly we arrive too late - the boats only go out in the mornings - so we just roam around and settle for a nondescript lunch of fried fish (not bad), fried calamari (not bad) and fried chips (horrendous) at the nearby Mariner's Wharf.


Fish n Chips at the Mariner's Wharf
On a whim we take a short detour along the Constantia Wine Route and also a stop by one of the wine farms - Groot Constantia. If you're a wine lover you'll love this route - eight separate wineyards all offering wine tastings, sales and some pretty great restaurants! The darling and I are teetotallers though, so we just admire the scenery and marvel at the architecture. If I'm absolutely honest though ... I'd say that the Constantia route isn't worth visiting if you're not a wine drinker.


Scenery along the Constantia Wine Route
For dinner we head over to the Grandwest Casino and Entertainment Complex. With almost twenty restaurants and bars, bowling lanes, cinema, skating rink, and (gasp!) no $100 entry fee to the casino, it's a great place to spend a night (and a lot of your hard earned cash).


Grandwest Casino, photo credit Magda's Manor
Onwards to Day Five, and an early trip back to Hout Bay for a second attempt at reaching the Seal Island! As you can see from the raincoat-wearing tourists in the photo, it's yet another gloomy, rainy day.


Hout Bay Seal Island Ferry
Unfortunately we aren't able to reach the island itself due to 6-8 foot waves, so the boat turns back and circles the harbour area to at least give us a glimpse of some seals lazing away. I'm no animal expert but it does seem that Seals have a rather uncharacteristic acceptance of humans - they're perfectly happy just lazing around on man-made structures and boats.



Hout Bay Seal Watching
After that washout we head over to Stellenbosch. Of the two main wine routes we feel this one is better - nicer scenery, a proper Town with restaurants, curio shops, etc - and most importantly for us, more activities for the non-drinkers! Of particular note is the Spier Wine Estate, which offers up an Eagle Conservatory, Picnic Area (they also supply the picnic baskets), a hotel and spa, and a couple of restaurants.


Eight Restaurant at the Spier Wine Farm
The Eight restaurant on the farm offers up a great selection of starters, mains and desserts, with most of the ingredients coming fresh from one of the many farms around the area.


Black Pig (Kurobuta?!?) at Eagle Encounters
We mull the idea of paying a visit to the spa but decide instead on visiting Eagle Encounters (also on the Farm grounds). Eagle Encounters is primarily a conservatory - taking in Eagles, Falcons and other birds of prey which for various reasons came into human possession. The team then tries to rehabilitate these birds, train them to fly and hunt with the eventual aim of releasing them back into the wild. Some birds can't be released (example they were too young, or too injured): these get to live out their lives here.


African Fish Eagle at Eagle Encounters
Your R 50 (SGD 5.71) entrance fee goes a remarkably long way. In addition to viewing the few dozen birds in their enclosures, you also get to watch the handlers teaching some of the birds to fly, pet a porcupine, and watch a secretary bird try to kick a fake snake to death.


Secretary Bird at Eagle Encounters
There's also a mini petting zoo of sorts with a bunch of surprisingly chill owls, and for a nominal extra fee you also get to take photos holding one of the eagles - these birds are huge up close.


Twiggy the Owl at Eagle Encounters
We then head back to Cape Town and visit the colourful neighbourhood of Bo-Kaap. This area of the city has been dubbed the "Malay Quarter" after being the residence area of choice of many of Cape Town's Indonesian/Malaysian-descent peoples. The area really doesn't have much draw other than these colourful houses - it is an actual residential area after all.


Colourful Malay Neighbourhood of Bo-Kaap
It's around here when the clouds clear up a bit so we're finally able to catch a glimpse of Table Mountain! The winds are still near gale-force level so the aerial cableway is still closed, but we still need to do the touristy thing and take some selfies with one of the New Seven Wonders of the World!


At the foot of Table Mountain Aerial Cableway
I've got a snaking suspicion these yellow frame box things are sponsored by Nat Geo :)


Table Mountain from Signal Hill
Dinner was a simple affair - some frozen foods from Woolworth's Food, cooked/heated up in the oven and on the stove back in the Service Apartment. Five days over in a blink of an eye!

Day Three in Cape Town - Two Oceans Aquarium and the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

Click here for the previous post in this series: Day Two in Cape Town - the Cape Peninsula Drive!

Almost at the halfway point - Day Three! We had pre-bought our tickets for the Robben Island Ferry for 1pm today, so it made sense to spend a couple of hours after breakfast visiting the Two Oceans Aquarium - also at the V&A Harbourfront area. Tickets are R125 (SGD 14.65) per adult, which is pretty reasonable!


Stone Fish - Most Venomous Fish in the World!
The aquarium itself is somewhat par for the course - mostly small and medium sized tanks holding all sorts of fish, sea creatures and other manner of aquatic life. There's a touch pool for the kids (and the young at heart), a microscopic exhibit, and of course a big central tank for all the really large sea animals - tortoises, sharks, tuna and the like. Our favorite exhibit by far was the Penguin Feeding which takes place at 11.30am daily. It's cute to see the penguins almost sort of queue up to get sardines hand-fed to them.


Daily Feeding of the African Penguins at 11.30am
In the overall scheme of Aquariums though the Two Oceans Aquarium is perhaps a little mediocre. In comparison with similar aquariums in South East Asia - SEA Aquarium in Singapore, Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan in Japan and the Aquaria KLCC in Malaysia for example - Two Oceans is small, less polished and has fewer exhibits. That's not to say it's a bad attraction, just that you should set your expectations accordingly when you visit.


African Penguins striking a pose
It's during our Aquarium visit when we get our first taste of Cape Town's fickle weather - via an SMS informing us that our Robben Island 1pm Ferry has been cancelled due to bad weather. Le sigh! We get our tickets rescheduled and reissued for tomorrow, and on a whim pay R55 (SGD 6.45) each to take a seal watching boat cruise around the harbour.


Seal Watching at the V&A Harbourfront
If it seems cheap, that's because this cruise really only takes you around the harbour area sheltered from the huge waves beyond the sea wall. It's still a nice way to spend about an hour - especially if the weather's nice and cool - and you do get to see some seals playing in the seas, or lazing around on tyres or other man made installations.



Seal Watching at the V&A Harbourfront
After a quick lunch we take a short 20-minute drive to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens to get in touch with some nature!


Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens
Entrance is R45 (SGD 5.27) for adults - uber cheap considering that Kirstenbosch spans a huge 36 hectare (89 acres / 3.9 million sq ft) area, all of which has been meticulously planned, landscaped and sculptured. Maintenance is top notch, too!


Kirstenbosch - Check out how low that cloud cover is!
Your mileage may vary depending on your personal tastes, interests and number of small children of course, but the darling and I spent the entire afternoon/evening here just strolling, relaxing, sitting down and stopping very often to (literally) smell the flowers.


Chilling out in Kirstenbosch
For dinner, we visited what is said to be the best steakhouse in all of Cape Town - Carne SA. Like many other countries with a tipping culture, service here is warm and friendly. I especially dig (digged? dug?) the introduction to all the meat available for the night - everything a meat lover could ask for - from the usual suspects Sirloin, T-Bone, Tenderloin, Rib-Eye, to the path-less-taken game meats of ostrich and kudu.


Best Steakhouse in Cape Town - Carne SA
We decide to go for one of their house specialties - dry aged Prime Rib on the Bone, and a trio of Tenderloins with three of their house sauces (Parsely, Mushroom and Bernaise). Medium rare, of course! We'll be posting the full review separately but a TLDR (Too Long, Didn't Read) summary would be that it's really, really good, especially considering the reasonable R 680 (SGD 79.70) price tag for the both of us including tips, drinks and starters!


Prime Rib on the Bone and a Trio of Fillets (Tenderloin)
It was back to the Apartment after that to retire for the night, hoping for the clouds to clear a little tomorrow (we still hadn't even seen table mountain yet at this point). Hope you've enjoyed the write-up, and stay tuned for Days Four to Six still to come!

Click here for the next post in this series: Days Four and Five in Cape Town, Constantia and Stellenbosch Wine Routes!

Day Two in Cape Town - the Cape Peninsula Drive!

Click here for the previous post in this series: Day One of Six in the Mother City - Cape Town, South Africa.

Our First Full Day in Cape Town! Upon checking the weather forecast it seemed we might have a spot of decent weather, so we had a quick breakfast at home and off we went for the Cape Peninsula Day Tour/Drive! If this route looks rather long, it really isn't. There's only a total of about 150 or so kilometers of driving spread out over the whole day so it's not as tightly packed an itinerary as it might seem.


The Cape Peninsula Drive
Onwards to our first destination then! Just a note here that Google Maps will (normally) direct you along the coastal road, but you really want to take a slight detour and go along the Muizenberg hills instead:


Map of the Hill Route overlooking St. James Beach / Kalk Bay
The hill route isn't particularly windy or high up, and you're rewarded with some nice views over the residential areas below.


Hill Route overlooking St. James Beach / Kalk Bay

Hill Route overlooking St. James Beach / Kalk Bay
Our first stop proper is at the colourful changing rooms of St. James Beach, for some photo taking and selfies. It being winter, there's perhaps not much appetite among the locals or tourists for dipping in the beach, but we did encounter a Church group having what seemed like a Baptism service!


St. James Beach Changing Rooms
We then drive a few more minutes down to Kalk Bay. It's a nice quaint little sleepy town with a dozen or so gift shops selling books, curios, art, food, ice cream and - if you're lucky - a flea market on the weekends. Across the street (the "beach" side) there's a little cafe called Kalk Bay Espresso that's set up shop in a 100-year old retired train car - we get seated for some pancakes in a gorgeous apple-brandy sauce, a somewhat unspectacular big breakfast plate, and some coffee to warm the tummies.


Brunch in a 100-year old Train Carriage - Kalk Bay Espresso
Stomachs filled up and after having bought a few dozen gifts for friends and family back home, we head over to the African Penguin Colony at Boulder's Beach.


Boulders Beach Penguin Colony
There are two entrances to the colony - the Southern entrance goes straight to the beach, where if you're lucky (and if it's really early in the morning) you might get some penguins walking around. Otherwise just head for the Northern entrance which is an elevated, fenced wooden walkway across the Colony proper.


Boulders Beach Penguin Colony
This is an actual breeding colony for the African Penguin - Mom & Dad come here to raise their little baby chicks. As chicks they have fluffy non-waterproof brown fur (which means they can't swim) - so they're totally dependant on Mom & Dad to feed them for about a year! This Colony is administered and protected by the folks at the Table Mountain National Park, and a very reasonable R 55 (SGD 6.45) entrance fee is levied for adults.


Boulders Beach Penguin Colony
Once we've had our fill of penguin spotting we drive all the way to the South-Western-most tip of Africa - Cape Point (R 105 / SGD12.31 entrance fee per person). From the parking area you have a choice to either walk up to the Cape Point lighthouse or pay R 52 (SGD 6.10) for a return trip on the Flying Dutchman Funicular. If you're wondering what a Funicular is, apparently that's the proper name for a vehicle on rails (like a train) that's driven by a ground-based cable (like a cable car). We do neither for the moment and make a beeline to the Two Oceans Restaurant for a late lunch instead!


Two Oceans Restaurant Cape Point
The restaurant has indoor and outdoor seating areas - outdoors is nice but it can be a little hot if there aren't much clouds to break up the heat from the sun. The menu is predominantly sushi (nothing special if you're from an Asian country), seafood, and some meat. We thought that our Grilled Cape Rock Lobster was nice and fresh, and the accompanying calamari and chips weren't half bad either. Two main courses plus drinks came up to R 480 (SGD 56.26) - reasonable.


Cape Rock Lobster Platter
After lunch we take the funicular up to the Cape Point lighthouse. The views here are quite spectacular - that body of rock jutting out in the background is the Cape of Good Hope, so named because this landmark is where ships sailing around Africa start to sail Eastwards (rather than Southwards) towards Asia and Australia.


View of the Cape of Good Hope from Cape Point Lighthouse
It's time to head back to Cape Town, but instead of totally retracing our steps we hang left just before Fish Hoek and head towards Noordhoek instead. What's fancy here is a 10-15minute absolutely stunning piece of coastal road called Chapman's Peak Drive.


Chapmans Peak Drive
The road winds around the Western edge of the Cape Peninsula mountains, right next to the sea. There's a lot of safe stopping areas along the roads where you can get out of the car and enjoy some absolutely gorgeous views like this one:


Chapmans Peak Drive
The drive is so nice we couldn't help but to take a video of the entire thing! Apologies for the bad quality in the first half of the video - courtesy of our half-malfunctioning GoPro Hero3+ (which we're still trying to get sorted with GoPro support at time of writing). And no, I didn't actually drive this fast - the video is 2x speed otherwise you'd get bored halfway :)



As we neared the end of the route it was close to sunset, so we got off at one of the stopping areas and enjoyed the sunset, with the nice cooling wind in our hair and the roaring sounds of the waves crashing against the rocky beach. Bliss!


Chapmans Peak Drive Sunset
I can't quite remember if we went straight back to the Service Apartment, or if we made a detour to the Canal Walk Shopping Centre (another big Cape Town Mall, also with over 400 stores) - probably not that important though. If you're the clubbing type, Cape Town has a ton of nightlife options ... which we unfortunately won't be able to shed much light on :)

Hope you enjoyed our write-up of our Second Day here in gorgeous Cape Town, and stay tuned for the remainder of the trip in the coming days!

Click here for the next post in this series: Day Three in Cape Town - Two Oceans Aquarium and the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

Day One of Six in the Mother City - Cape Town, South Africa

Click here for the previous post in this series: Six Days in the Mother City - Cape Town, South Africa

Onwards to our detailed itinerary! As we mentioned earlier, do feel free to leave us any questions in the comments sections and we'll definitely try our best to answer. Anyways, Day One really was a Day Half due to the two-hour flight from Johannesburg in the morning. We paid R 3,698 (SGD 431.19) for return trips for two adults on Fly Mango. It was a pleasant flight with a nice modern cabin (although strangely enough none of the seats recline). Being a budget airline food and drinks aren't included but thankfully the in-flight purchases are reasonably priced.


View out the window of our Fly Mango flight
The landing was foggy/cloudy as heck though - the view outside the window was zero during descent, and when the fogs/clouds cleared were were literally a few dozen feet off the ground. The captain later came on the intercom and said something about a "Category 3 ILS auto land" ... or basically "we couldn't see sh*t so we let the plane land itself." I didn't know airplanes could do that.

A quick and uneventful domestic check-out later, we collected our cheerful Nissan Micra Rental from Tempest Car hire - really cheap at R 298.20 (SGD 34.76) per day. And this was with the reduced excess, too! In hindsight we should have perhaps splurged a little and upgraded to a nicer car because of how relatively cheap it is. For the best deals check out a comparison site like Kayak - practically all major rental car companies are represented in Cape Town.


Canal Quays Apartments, near the V&A Waterfront
Our Home from Home is a short 15-minute drive away and is just right next to the V&A Waterfront. Dubbed the Canal Quays Apartment, it's an absolute steal at just SGD 111.81 per night for a delightfully cozy studio service apartment. There's a washer, dryer, dish washer, TV, fridge and a fully equipped kitchen - oven, cookers, microwave, pots & pans, cutlery, everything! With Pick n Pay, Checkers and Woolworth's Food shops all over town, the flexibility of buying ham, cheese, bread, cereals, juice and stocking up for quick breakfasts at "home!"


Lunch at the Greek Fisherman, V&A Waterfront
By the time we checked in and got comfortable it was already early afternoon though so we headed to the Victoria & Albert Waterfront for a late lunch and some exploration. There are many good, inexpensive restaurants here - we settle on the Greek Fisherman for a seafood-themed lunch. Any subconscious desire for weight watching was quickly squashed with the arrival of the seafood soups: these were absolutely loaded with fish, squid, mussels and prawns, and we had to reluctantly cancel one of our main courses. The darling couldn't even finish the soup!


Seafood Soup at the Greek Fisherman, V&A Waterfront
As we mentioned in our previous post, visiting in Winter has its' risks - and gloomy overcast skies is one of them. We couldn't even see Table Mountain in the background as it was completely covered by clouds! The clouds didn't even clear up at all until Day Five. So our photos will have to make do with scotch taped photo of the mountain from a previous trip :P


Hanging Out at the V&A Waterfront
Some might say that the Waterfront is a little touristy, but is that necessarily a bad thing? It's cool, it's hip, there's tons of stuff to do, including:

• The Two Oceans Aquarium
• Gateway to the Robben Island Museum (one of Nelson Mandela's jails)
• Handicraft and Wellness Craft Market
• Helicopter tours of the Harbour and surrounding area
• Boat tours (including a pretend Pirate ship) of the Harbour and surrounding area
• Scratch Patch and Cave (Mini) Golf
• Shopping Mall with over 400 retail outlets
• Over 30 different restaurants and eateries
• Diamond museum (and shop)


Hanging Out at the V&A Waterfront
For today though, we went to the Robben Island Museum Gateway to buy our ferry tickets for tomorrow (advisable to buy in advance, especially on weekends), play a round of Cave (Mini) Golf, and do some window shopping at the Mall. There's two supermarkets there - a Pick n Pay (sort of our equivalent of Giant) and a Woolworth's Food (sort of a combination of Cold Storage and Marks & Spencer) - where we we picked up some frozen meals to take home to our 'home from home' for early dinner and an early tuck in to bed.

After all, South Africa is 6 hours behind Singapore, so best not to push ourselves too far past midnight :)

Click here for the next post in this series: Day Two in Cape Town - the Cape Peninsula Drive!

Six Days in the Mother City - Cape Town, South Africa

Checking in from the Mother City - Cape Town! Well ... to be entirely accurate we're doing a #latergram thingy from back home in Singapore. But let's not sweat the small stuff! We were in Cape Town for Six days last week, stalking the African Penguins, getting up close with some Eagles, dodging baboons on wine farms and all round just having one hell of a time.


West Coast view of the Cape Peninsula
We'll be posting up our full itinerary and details of our trip over the next few days in a hope that it'll help in planning your trip to this beautiful city. And if you've never considered vacationing in South Africa up until now, perhaps you'll change your mind soon enough. But first, allow us two minutes of narcissism with a 360° video selfie!



Ahem. We couldn't get all our visited places into the video because strangely enough our GoPro Hero3+ Black decided to partially mulfunction and totally screw up quite a few of our videos and photos. Sadface.

Just a few notes before moving on to the itinerary, though. Cape Town has some extremely unpredictable weather. The locals often mention that you can experience four seasons in a single day here. We experienced a few meals where it was gloomy and cloudy walking in to a cafe for lunch, raining while we were eating and sunny with clear blue skies by the time we were done with food. Unfortunately these weather changes do mean that you can't really structure an itinerary - you more or less have to prepare a list of 'things you want to do' and shuffle them around on the fly as the weather permits.


Stalking an African Penguin and her chick
For example, for us Table Mountain Aerial Cableway was closed due to Gale-force winds for five of the six days we were there, and our Robben Island Ferry was cancelled two days in a row. Despite the stormy weather we were able to do most of what we planned, though.

When's the best season to visit? It really depends - the winter months of July-August are peak Whale-Watching season, but they are also the wettest and so you'd likely need to juggle around your schedule like a circus acrobat. Summers are full of carnivals, outdoor performances, etc but hot days can go up to 40°C. Coming from a tropical, hot-all-year-round country we like to holiday in cooler climates, but of course your mileage will vary.


Close up with a juvenile African Fish Eagle
So without further ado, here's our six day itinerary in the Mother City - Cape Town!

Day 1: Arrive in Cape Town and pick up our rental car. Check in, head to the V&A Waterfront for late lunch, exploration, Scratch Patch and Cave Golf.
Day 2: Day trip along the Cape Peninsula, with stops at the Colourful Changing Rooms at St. James Beach, breakfast in a converted 100-year old train car at Kalk Bay, African Penguin colony at Boulder's Beach and ending at the South-Western most tip of Africa - Cape Point. Drive back up to Cape Town through Chapman's Peak Drive on the Western edge of the Continent.
Day 3: Back to the V&A Watefront to visit the Two Oceans Aquarium, followed by a short seal-watching cruise around the harbour and then chillaxing in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.
Day 4: Paid a visit to the District Six Museum to learn a little about the apartheid era, and then Grout Constantia vineyard along the Constantia Valley wine route.
Day 5: Headed to Hout Bay for a trip to a nearby Seal Colony, then a detour to Spier Wine Farm near Stellenbosch for food and close-ups with an Eagle/falcon rehabilitation centre. Ended the day with a quick trip to Bo-Kaap and then up to Signal Hill for the sunset.
Day 6: The weather finally clears up a bit so we manage to take a trip to Robben Island and visit the Jail where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years before the fall of apartheid. Checked out of the hotel and headed to the airport for our flight back to Johannesburg.

We don't want to cram everything into a single blog post as that would be way too long (and you'd probably lose interest halfway) - so we'll be breaking it up into several posts over the coming days. Hopefully this opener has given you a nice idea of our holiday and do stay tuned for the details, photos and videos of all six days to come! If you've got any comments or questions do feel free to leave them in the comments and we'll try our best to answer!

Click here for the next post in this series: Day One of Six in the Mother City - Cape Town, South Africa