Muizenberg misery

In the morning we drove down the main road into Citrusdal. And then drove round and round it looking for a cafe. We found one in the end and had the worlds largest omelette for breakfast. It kept us full up until the evening. The morning was spent on a reasonably long drive down to Muizenberg near Cape Town. The drive was a slightly annoying one because of the increasing traffic on the roads and the general nuttiness of the South African driver. It's like they can't stand to see a driver behind them or in front of them as they are always either pulling into the emergency lane or forcing you to do the same so they can pass, regardless of speed. Gemma was getting annoyed with it so was glad when we found Muizenberg. We booked into a hostel on Surfers Corner, which surprisingly enough is where the surfers go. The waves didn't seem to big, but that wasn't deterring anyone as there were tons of people in the water.

The hostel was right next to the light rail station, and it appears that Capetonians like their graf, which kept me amused for a while. Lots of full cars came past, although I didn't get my act together enough to wait on the platform with my camera. Gemma got to ring her Mum for the first time in ages, so she was happy. We found a very nice cafe attached to an olive factory & shop.

The next morning we drove out to Rondevlei nature reserve, and found it without too much hassle, despite not having a detailed enough map. This is a wetlands reserve and home to lots of birds as well as a reintroduced hippo population. We didn't see any hippos but we did see lots of birds. It's nice to have a reserve like this in the middle of Cape Town. We spent the afternoon in the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens, on the slopes on the other side of Table Mountain. This is probably one of the best botanic gardens that I've ever been to. Lots of lovely Fynbos, Protea and Erica areas as well as useful plant displays, etc. All very lovely and interesting and an excellent place to while away an afternoon.

The lovely day was spoiled a bit by what happened over night. Our car was broken into and a bag of leaflets (stuff we had been saving as souveniers -of no worth to anyone) and Gemma's jacket got nicked. We got the hostel to call the police, but I realised we could be waiting ages so I walked up to the station and reported it there. I didn't want them to investigate so I just had them file it as malicious damage for insurance purposes only. This pretty much spoiled our day a little bit, as we had planned to drive to the Table Mountain cableway and then find a hostel. As it was we drove to Cape Town and gave the car back.