We've been in Port Elizabeth for a couple of days now and I've finally got some to time to update the blog ... I'd expected the Internet to be available at every turn, silly me!
Got to go back a whole week to last Wednesday to pick up the thread. While we were staying with Christa's mum in Somerset West we headed to Cape Town for sight-seeing (or a trip down memory lane depending on your point of view).
The basic idea was to drive around the peninsula and wind up at UCT:
Being a post-imperialist I gravitated to traces of Cecil Rhode's life (hard to miss actually). Here's Rhode's cottage in Muizenberg where he first settled when advised to emigrate to South Africa for his health:
Heading further down the road we arrived at Boulder's Beach ... who knew that Jackass penguins have been renamed African penguins by the PC police? They've established the place as a nature reserve, but you can still walk on the beach amongst the penguins:
We had lunch in Simon's Town a long-time Royal Navy town and then moved on to the beautiful Chapman's peak drive to Hout Bay ... they've made it a toll road in order to pay for maintenance of the precipitous outlooks along the way ... you have to say it reminds you a little of route 1 near Big Sur!:
I dragged both families across the UCT campus on a quest for t-shirts and memories winding up at Jameson Hall site of the annual step tobogganing relay races that ruined many a student's good looks!:
To get back to Rhodes we went up the mountain behind the campus to his memorial ... to take in the views. The University was built on Rhode's Groote Schuur estate, the main residence of which became the home of generations of South African presidents to this day ... so, ironically enough, the British imperialists, Afrikaaner nationalists and Nelson Mandela have all literally slept in the same bed!
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