Travel Guides: All Countries / Africa / South Africa / Western Cape / Cape Town
 |  | Travel Reviews : Cape Town |
|
| | | | Roaming with Dumbo in Africa
From the Daily Mail
Well, I left my bikini on a hill in Johannesburg. Not any old hill, but the rose-pink village of the Westcliff Hotel which curves its way up opposite the zoo on the north side of the city.
From the terraces of our rooms we looked out not only on the spectacular pool, which hangs as if suspended in the sky, but also on the elephant enclosures across the way. Days later we would watch elephants again, whole herds of them, in the wild. But for now, here was the anticipation of a new adventure, and the bikini, put out to dry after a hurried swim, was forgotten in the rush.
For years I had longed to take our children, aged 12 and 10, to South Africa, but its very nature - vivid, colourful, turbulent - made it essential to get this kind of trip right. We went at Easter, encouraged by reports that the southern tip would just be dipping into autumn. After an 11-hour flight and an overnight stop in Jo'burg we left next morning on a small propeller plane headed for Sun City, tucked away on the edge of the Kalahari.
When Sun City opened in 1979, this fantastical resort was the only place in South Africa where gambling was legal. The casino was followed by golf courses and water parks, entertainment on lavish scale and a man-made rainforest.
It is aimed at children, or at least those who still believe in fairytales, its sell being that centuries ago people from the north of Africa travelling south settled in a green valley here until an earthquake forced them to abandon it.
Now, like Sleeping Beauty's castle, it has been rediscovered, its stairways, temple statues and sunken pools evoking an ancient but luxurious time, its hidden waterslides daringly modern and fun.
Travel Guide: Cape Town
Hire a car to explore
We visited Cape Town and the surrounding areas for a three week holiday in November three years ago.
The views are really special and the food and drink are cheap and excellent.
The highlight of the holiday was a trip from Hermanus to see the great white sharks. This was truly awesome and something never to be forgotten.
We hired a jeep for the full three weeks which gave us the freedom to travel where and when we wanted which was a huge bonus.
I would recommend this to anyone visiting Cape Town.
Travel Guide: Cape Town
Short and sweet
Cape Town is the best city in the world, beautiful, sunny, cheap, friendly. Really, what more are you looking for?
Travel Guide: Cape Town
Shoppers' paradise
I spent one week at the Vineyard Hotel, Newlands in the suburbs of Cape Town. Excellent service, food and wine at a very reasonable cost.
Cape Town is a shoppers' paradise with good quality goods and particularly jewellery at keen prices. I recommend a visit to the waterfront and a trip to the winelands.
I advise you not stay in the city centre as this can be a no-go area at nights and weekends. I will return for sure.
Travel Guide: Cape Town
|
|
|
|
|
| | | | On safari at Shamwari
For our taste of safari we flew south to Port Elizabeth on the Eastern Cape. Our visit to the Shamwari Game Reserve was to be the climax of the trip. During our three-night stay my daughter would celebrate a 13th birthday we hoped she'd never forget. From the moment our own private ranger, Warwick John, stepped forward to meet us at the airport, all in khaki like something out of the Sixties TV show Daktari, we guessed we were on to a winner.
Warwick had been hand-picked for the job. With a brother and sister the same age as our children, he could advise, explain and create a personalised plan for us to make the most of our time and adventure. His role was to seek out different game, taking us on early morning (5am) and evening drives. We had him to ourselves, making the Land Rover, which could seat twice as many, exceptionally spacious.
He sat at meals with us, poured sundowners on a night-time drive, provided tartan rugs when it got chilly, and got us up to speed on the facts: an elephant eats 50% bushes/50% grass, a giraffe has the same number of vertebrae in its neck as a human (seven), no two zebras share the same stripy pattern-
Shamwari is malaria-free - no need to take any pills - and has a happy-ever-after factor. Started by businessman Adrian Gardiner just over ten years ago, land is still being added to its 19,000 hectares along the Bushman's River. Adrian's dream was to see the wild game - which had long ago been poached and hunted out of the area - back, wild and free, on the Eastern Cape.
He began to buy fields and bush as farmers sold up, and gradually introduced a huge variety of game. Today Shamwari has elephants, zebras, hippos, leopards, giraffes, buffaloes, black and white rhinos and more varieties of antelope than you could name.
During our stay the lion was still confined to its own vast enclosure but in July, new prides were being brought in on both the north and south of the main reserve, neighbouring farmers - including Warwick's father - having been pacified by the electric fence which borders the whole of Shamwari.
Five original settlers' cottages around the estate have been beautifully restored and transformed as accommodation, as has Long Lee Manor, the Edwardian farmhouse, where we could watch the elephants and giraffes out on the plains while we rested between drives.
On the day of the big 13th birthday, we watched a month-old rhino kick and roll about in the grass like a puppy, and sat hushed on a pathway with just the vaguest crack suggesting some creature might be nearby. Then one tree tumbled, and another, and slowly 50 elephants emerged all around us. No one felt the slightest bit apprehensive until a baby, just weeks old, appeared, waving its ears Dumbo-style, and its aunts and mother trumpeted their decision it was time we leave.
|
|
|
|
|
| | | | A whale of a time
So successful was Shamwari, it didn't seem to matter that as we started off in our hired car along the Garden Route (Highway N2 that leads all the way to Cape Town), the rain was lashing down so thick and fast you could hardly see the road.
The views are said to be unparalleled - ocean to the left, mountains to the right - but we saw none of it, finally stopping at the town of Knysna on a lagoon. The welcome at Belvidere Manor helped. At our cottage a log fire burned, and cheerful colours lightened the gloom outside.
After an excellent dinner in the 150-year-old Belvidere House we went to bed, assured that next morning the sun would be shining. And incredibly, it was. Not only that, but the lagoon was mirror-calm, with clouds steaming down from the mountains around it as if in a Harry Potter spell.
From here you can catch the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe steam train, visit oyster farms or take a picnic to sandy Brenton-on-Sea. But for us there was only one thing: a boat trip from Plettenberg Bay to see the whales.
Accustomed by now to seeing such an abundance of wildlife, we were still overwhelmed by the thousands of seals, flippers up, along the coast of the Robberg Peninsular, and then by the sight of the whale. First the swell in the water ahead, then the tell-tale spurt from its blow-hole and finally the vast black body arcing so gracefully just a few yards from the boat.
Unfortunately, our own arrival back on land wasn't as fluid. The boat - a sort of 21st century landing craft - had to catch the waves and then run at speed at the beach, literally running itself aground.
'Hold on to the rail in front of you,' said the skipper, sending a burly crew member to hold on to my husband, who found himself in the front row without any rails. As we crashed on to the sand, children flying forward, my husband and his protector both spread-eagled on the deck, I thought the holiday's more risky elements were behind us.
|
|
|
|
|
| | | | Riding the ostrich express
Up in the mountains we set off from our log cabin at Eight Bells Mountain Inn to explore on horseback. The views down the coast are breathtaking, the horses lively - but not quite as unpredictable as the ostriches the children would ride next day.
At Outshorrn you are in ostrich country. The heat intensifies as you go over the mountain pass, leaving the blue of the coast merging with the sky behind you. Everywhere ostriches strut the desert; at a farm we were offered first ostrich soup, then ostrich steak and a little ostrich omelette on the side. We could buy ostrich feather boas, ostrich leather handbags and painted ostrich eggs.
The living inhabitants can give a nasty kick and we were warned that if we wished to feed them, we should move any sparkling ring onto the other hand as a newly engaged visitor had just had hers pecked off and swallowed by a particularly intrepid bird. By the time we reached the enclosure where the brave could pick a mount, which immediately took off, kicking and pecking everything in its path, I chose to put my own head in the sand. I didn't miss much. 'Very bony wings,' reported our girls.
So imagine how sophisticated Cape Town felt after all this. Here we had a chance to shop and dine out, astonished at how cheap it was compared with London prices. Not being fond of heights, I forced myself on the family outing by cable car to the top of Table Mountain and will never regret it, although I wish I'd realised the floor revolved before I closed my eyes, clung to the central post and found myself stretched and everyone else convulsed in laughter.
We also managed a few refreshingly breezy moments at Cape Point, the furthest point south, and a trip to Boulder's Bay, where in heart-stoppingly cold water we actually swam with penguins.
Not in the bikini, however. Yet, as we made our way home via Johannesburg airport, I saw my name on a placard held by the beaming driver from the Westcliff Hotel where we had stayed. In his hand was an extravagant package, and there amid layers of tissue paper was my comfy old swimming costume wrapped like a precious jewel. What style.
|
|
|
|
|
| | Available rental properties in Cape Town |
|
|
|
|
