Seeing we were in Cape Town for an undetermined time, we spent some more time with my sister and the family. Besides the occasional braai, she invited us to go and explore Cape Point National Park , part of the greater Cape Floral World Heritage Site, with its beautiful shoreline and iconic lighthouse.
We had a quick lunch at the restaurant and were quite impressed (if that is the right word to use) with the baboon control measures: guards running around with paintball guns to keep any brave and daring baboon away from the restaurant area (where the food is). It may sound drastic for non initiates but baboons can be really aggressive and are a real pest in various areas in and around Cape Town. They have grown so used to the human environment that nothing much scares them away. They have been known to break car windows and wreck a car on the inside (and houses in certain suburbs) if they think there is food. (When we were here with my other sister and her two kids 30 years ago, we had a baboon jumping into our combi and snatching a bag of cereal or something. And of course the kids screamed their head off.)
This time around we had only one braveheart being chased away by security and a little family sitting quietly on the pathway.
We walked up the path towards the historic lighthouse and the cottages and passed some of the look-out points with sweeping views of the rocky shore being relentlessly pounded by the ocean.
When you look back towards the parking lot, you can see the ocean to the left and False Bay to the right of the peninsula.
There was still an abundance of fynbos and other flowers gripping onto nooks and crannies in the rocks. A little lizard was sunning itself in the sun and seemed not too perturbed with our presence.
We could see nests on the vertical cliffs and the birds sailing in the wind. Brother in law Gerhard was the unfortunate recipient of a dose of guano being blown into his face. Unfortunately the wind was strong and swirling and the guano from the birds flying below us was being carried upwards by the wind instead of falling downwards according to the rules of gravity. Ugh!
From the historic lighthouse we could look down to the new lighthouse, further down on the cliffs. There is a signpost indicating how far it is to Sydney… a reminder how far away some of our kids and grandkids are.
We took the pathway that leads down the mountain side closer to the new lighthouse and stood looking out over the wide sweep of the ocean meeting the sky somewhere in the far distance and False Bay skyline painting a pretty picture in shades of blue.
By then it was late afternoon and we returned to the car park. We took a last drive through the park and were lucky to see some eland grazing on the mountain sides and ostrich pecking away along the road.
We went home (my sister’s home) and had another braai with my sister and her family.
A wonderful ending to a beautiful day!
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Cape Point lighthouse