We awoke to clear blue skies and the most glorious view of Table Mountain - what a spectacular sight to have whilst eating breakfast.
Prior to coming to Cape Town we'd looked at various day trips down to Cape Point but as always the prime focus seemed to be on stopping for drinks and food and so we contacted one of the companies and arranged a private tour so we could do exactly as we pleased and stay longer should we find something of interest (giving full consideration to the poor person driving us of course).
Our guide Calvin picked us up from the apartment foyer at 08:30 and although the loose itinerary suggested we would first visit the colourful Bo Kaap district, Calvin suggested as it was such a beautiful day that it would be better to head straight for Table Mountain and beat the queues for the cable car and go to Bo Kaap at the end of the day.
It was only about a 20 min drive to the cable car and although it only opened at 0800 (we could see the cars going up and down from our balcony) there were still quite a lot of vehicles around but of course Calvin knew exactly where to park so we wouldn't have too much of a walk and off he went to sort the tickets.
There were only two cars, one in each direction, but they held around 20 people and, best of all, with two glass panes removed and a rotating floor, everyone has an amazing view. And unlike in Switzerland where you literally had to jump on/off a moving car, these ones actually stopped.
A few times it felt we were about to crash into the rock face.
But nice to see the wild flowers up close.
Once up at the top we started with a relief map of the area.
This is Robben Island, which lies 7kms offshore.
This is known as Lion's Head, we can see a bit of it from our apartment balcony.
And the green spaces stretching to the right are the back of the lion. Central Cape Town lies the other side of it and the views are fabulous.
It's a long way down to the cable car hut.
There's no way I'd ever get Ian standing on an edge like that so I thought an anonymous person would look better than empty rocks.
As you saw above there is a lot of mist and fog around and they're attempting to "harvest" it.
Southern Rock Agama m.
I took a lot of rock photos.
This looks like it could've been shot on the Cornish Coast, with an old tin mine building.
Looking down onto Camps Bay, an affluent suburb of Cape Town on the west coast of the Cape Peninsula.
As I so often do, I see a face here; eye (just about), nose and mouth
Calvin was a very personable and patient guide.
Red-winged Starling and you can just about see the red wing.
And as usual, I've taken pretty much identical shots on the way back down.
Well that certainly was a good start to our day and I'm pleased we were there early to avoid the massive queues.