On the way to Hout Bay we passed groups of people sitting on the edge of the pavements with their feet sprawled out into the roads. I couldn’t make out whether they were waiting for transport or just idly chatting. I waved and they beamed huge smiles and waved back enthusiastically. We arrived at the bay and were given time to peruse the local craft sellers before boarding the boat to visit the seal colony on Duiker Island. We spent time looking at the crafts and I enjoyed haggling to get the best price. The quality of the craft items was excellent and we purchased several malachite necklaces that would have been very expensive at home. I snapped a photo of one of the stall holders. The sea was very choppy and we had to hang on tight while the boat lurched this way and that. The Island was covered in a huge seal colony and the smell was unbelievable. There were hundreds of Cape fur seals covering the rocky island and many more wallowed in the turbulent waters. On the return we watched dolphins leaping from the water in the bay. This was the icing on the cake for Lisa, who has always longed to see dolphins in the wild.

We then detoured inland, avoiding Chapman’s Drive, on the way to Cape Point. Vast areas were burnt out and here and there the fires had stopped feet from houses. Some property had been lost or severely damaged. At Cape Point we turned down the offer of the tramway to the summit and walked with Nick, the Sport Abroad representative. In the distance we could see the tip of Africa and the Indian Ocean. The sun blazed down. It was like the best of summer days back home. From the Point we returned along the coast road and stopped at a local restaurant which afforded magnificent views along the coast. After an excellent local caught fish lunch we continued our journey. The next stop was to visit the penguin colony at Boulders. The jackass penguins occupied an attractive cove. Some were on nests incubating their young, others rolled in on the breaking surf returning from a fishing expedition, most just lazed around on the beach taking virtually no notice of the invading tourists. Somehow I have always thought of penguins living in cooler climates; here they basked in the heat of the mid afternoon summer sun.

We now returned to Cape Town, passing through some beautiful towns including Fish Hoek and Simon’s Town. On the way out of Fish Hoek we were provided with a panoramic view along the coast and the beaches looked so deserted and welcoming. The tour guide kept describing sights as awesome, so Lisa, Nick and myself had a little competition to think up some new, but similar meaning words beginning with ‘A’. We decided upon amazing, astounding, astonishing, appreciable and when we had all but run out of ideas Nick came up with applaudable. Was that in the dictionary? We then had a joke with the tour guide that we were going to teach him some new ‘A’ words. He took it in good spirits and we all had a laugh together as the tour came to a close.