Final Sights: Cape Point

Jeff, John and I travelled out to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, the day after our return to Cape Town. Along the way we once again passed my favorite view in Cape Town, the Sentinal at the entrance to Hout Bay. Some nice shots of Jeff and I. We went through Chapman's Peak (fondly known by most locals as Chappies), passing Noordhoek, Kommetjie (a surfer's paradise), stopping in Slangkoppunt to take pix of the lighthouse and watch the horses run along the beach in Long Beach, and passing through Misty Cliffs and into Scarborough, landing at the Table Mountain National Park and Cape Point.

This area is popularly perceived as the meeting point of the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. Geographically, however, the Indian Ocean joins the Atlantic Ocean at Cape Agulhas.The local authority proclaimed the area a nature reserve in 1938 and it was incorporated into the Table Mountain National Park in 1998.

A bit of history (and for Jeff and John, we have our explanation of the two structures you guys were trying to figure out their purpose): Early European seafarers who circumnavigated the Cape of Good Hope include the 15th century Portuguese explorers, Bartholomew Dias and Vasco Da Gama , whose journeys led to the establishment of the Cape sea route to the East. To commemorate their voyages of discovery, two navigational beacons have been erected at strategic points. In 1488, Dias named the peninsula Cabo Tormentoso, or the Cape of Storms. Portugal's King John II later gave it the name Cabo da Boa Esperanca, the Cape of Good Hope. In 1580, Sir Francis Drake described it as "The most stately thing and the fairest Cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth". Today, shipwrecks and stone crosses bear testimony to the treacherous and challenging historic sea route.

While tooling around the Point, we ran into some fellow Epic riders, volunteers and staff... but did not see the couple who told Jeff they were going to ride 100k round trip from Cape Town to Cape Point and back. Maybe they ultimately changed their minds about getting back in the saddle. ;)

On the way home, we drove into Simon's Town (a place that feels a lot like New Orleans) for lunch and some local entertainment, stopped at Boulder's Beach to see the penguins, and into Kalk Bay to show John this charming fisherman's town and to stop at our fave bakery, Olympia.

Another breathtaking day in Cape Town!