CAPE TOWN!!!!

**SORRY FOR NOT BLOGGING FOR SUCH A LONG TIME. I HAVE UPDATED EVERYTHING, WITH THE RESULT THAT THERE ARE MANY NEW POSTINGS, SO SCROLL DOWN TO READ/SEE EVERYTHING- I'LL TRY TO UPDATE MORE REGULARLY AND NOT DO EVERYTHING AT ONCE NEXT TIME:)**

Right after funday Renke, Marloes and I flew to Cape Town for a long weekend. It really felt as a vacation, even though it was only a couple of days.

Table mountain, covered with clouds! While everywhere else the weather was beautiful!

Marloes going lose at the local market!:)

There are amazing painters here. All these are self-made paintings... I just can't choose! I already have one with elephants and a sunset (See earlier blog) but there are so many other beautiful ones!

Kippen in CapeTown! I think I need to go back here with Kevin...:) (what actually will happen in about 4 or 5 weeks, because he is coming to visit me!!)

beach & mountains

We wanted to climb the table mountain, but because of the table cloth (cloud) it was closed. It is very hard to imagine that up the table mountain the weather is very bad and cold, while in town it is so hot!

We then drove around and more or less accidently came to the beach. It was soooo nice!! The water is so clear and COLD!!
the cloud over table mountain!
the cloud sticks to the mountain, which gives funny views.
we drove up to ahigh point were we had a very nice view over the huge city!

On our way to Cape Point, Nelson and Penguins!

On the way to Cape Point we suddenly had to stop because a whole Baboon family was sitting at the sides of the road and more or less took over the whole road... At first we were very excited, but at the end of the day we just sighed- " oh an other baboon, let's drive on!" :)
The funny thing about this is that alot of shops/bars etc in Simonstown are named after Lord Nelson because of the ' probable' fact...

Penguins in the Indian Ocean!! Isn't it amazing? They really exist in Africa- Penguins! They are so cute and funny and if they would be in the water (which they weren't when we were there) you could swim with them!

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE!!!

After a very scenic ride we arrived at Cape Point. From there we could walk to Cape of Good Hope. All the books I read as a kid- thanks to my dad- came to live! It was a dark day, but still very hot. The winds here are amazing! Actually the whole place was just amazing! We decided to walk to Cape of Good Hope before we would go up to Cape Point- where you can actually ' see' the two oceans meet. The Indian Ocean is very warm while the Atlantic Ocean is very cold- thanks to the streams. view on Cape of Good Hope
It is impossible to capture into words what it was like to climb down the bay and be on this beach with noone else than the three of us and some brave birds and the mighty ocean!


one of the brave birds...

The rocks are humongous (is this spelled right??) Here you see Renke- so that you'll have an impression of how big everything is!

Me enjoying the ocean! I do miss the fresh ocean breeze here in the inlands of South Africa- so I had to get my fix!:)

Cape of Good Hope and the beach we were on- somewhere deep down, seen from Cape Point:)

The way back

Long way from home....
Going down from Cape Point with view on the Indian Ocean

Apparently the route we drove back home is one of the most scenic routes in the world...

Sunset on the Atlantic Ocean

TABLE MOUNTAIN!!

Finally the table mountain did not have a table cloth over it! We drove there and found a line that long that it wasn't fun anymore. We half and half already decided that we were going to climb the mountain- so now it was an easy decision! The mountain guard said that it was about an hour to the top. I wasn't too convinced, but well- we had our water and time, so no rush...

Here we just started- not knowing what a long way was waiting for us!

Here we are more or less at the beginning and we have to climb all the way in between the two mountains.

Prepared to climb! Here still on my shoes- which broke later on, so that I had to go down on my bare feet... I wasn't the only one doing that- but probably I was the only one who didn't do it out of free choice!
Somewhere half way. I don't have a lot of pictures becuase my batteries were empty, and of course I didn't have new batteries with me. Plus it was too exhausting to even think aboutt aking pictures! I think it was one of the heaviest hikes I've ever done and I have done quite some hikes. It wasn't so much that it was too steep- but it was definitely too hot! I was so happy with my bottle of water! We met three girls who were also climbing, even less experienced as we were (if possible!) and they hadn't brought any water and thought they were about to die. We shared our waters and made some friends for life!:)
We reached the top! Don't ask how we did it, but we did it! It was absolutely worth it! For once I mainly just looked around and enjoyed instead of taking a 100 pictures... Sorry for you! It was just too amazing. On top it really is flat and the view you have... Sjoe! THis picture is taken right down from the table mountain- you can see how blue the Atlantic Ocean is!

Here I really got the impression how great God our creator is and I had to think of psalm 139...

Here you can more or less follow the road we drove the day before, along the coast!
Together with Renke I climbed back down as well. We could have gone with the cable car (as Marloes did) but it was the challenge to climb up and climb down as well! It wasn't necessarily fun to do- but it was an achievement which I enjoyed very much! As already said- my shoe broke, so it was nicer to walk on my bare feet. It also made me hurry up because the rocks we were walking on were very hot!! I made it all the way down with only one huge blister on my big toe of which the mountain guard took gentle care!:)

From table mountain we drove straight to the airport, never felt so dirty on a plane!!

Fashionshow!!

We were barely back to normal life or something else was already happening: Fun day/ Valentine's day celebration at school. On February 14, we didn't celebrate Valentine's day because the Matrics (last class) were writing their exams. Therefore we had a fun day at February 21- right before we went off for our long weekend. The whole day there were events. The pupils are amazing! THey are drilled so well, but once you give them some freedom you see what's really in them! People read their own poems (to 800 other people!), people sang, people danced and one of the biggest thing: there was a fashionshow!

In between there was a break in which you could get bread rolls with boerewors- here the grade 12 pupils are braaiing the boerewors. It's actually very good! It's a kind of sausage...

Marloes, Renke and I were participating in the fashionshow, but we didn't want to be the only ones making a fool out of themselves so we convinced two other teachers to participate as well. Yes- these people are respectable Cornerstone College Teachers! They went for the 80's look. I'm not sure(because they 80's is a bit before my time - when it comes to clothing and going out) but I think they did very well!:)

3 pupils (in the middle) with two student teachers: Tambi on the left and Marloes on the right...

You might not recognize them- but it's Mrs. Hurlin and Renke!

D.C. (the C stands for Cleopatra, but everyone calls her D.C.) one of my grade 12 pupils (almost impossible to recognize her this way- compared to her wearing her school uniform!)

Two pupils in their 80's look!

The act of the day!! Mrs. Hurlin doing her dancing act on " Im a dancing queen" from Abba! It was hilarious!! I have to admit that she dances quite good! (Mom- you can learn something from her!:) The guy you see taking the picture is Dr. Hurlin. The teachers were joking that this was suggestive dancing and that she should be called over the intercom to have a talk in the office (this is funny for me, but probably less for you!) Oh if you could just come to visit for a couple of days- that would be soooo much fun!!!

Other animals:)

Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures of every animal we saw. We saw amazing birds, milioenpoot, little animals- springbokkies, etc... What was very impressive was that we saw two hartebees fighting. I do have it on video and I'll try to post it later, but for now only a picture- sorry, they're not fighting on the picture.

Another hartebees hiding under a tree, but we spotten him (or her!:)
We had to wait for this turtle crossing the road- as all turtles, he was very slow! But it was nice to have a close look at him, so we didn't mind:)

It definitely was an amzing day and no regrets about getting up at 4.30 to go here- it was definitely worth it!! Sorry that Im not more talketive about everything, but I still think a picture says more than a 1000 words!:)

Koedoe's!

Another amazing animal: the koedoe! THis was a mother with her baby- so cute! I also have a little video of this- I'll see and try of I can also put it online- so that you get the real africa feeling:)

If you look at the right side- behind the mother- you'll see the little koedoe baby's ears...
Look at the big soft ears!

She noticed us- and left...:(

Zebra's!!

We stated that we would be happy and satisfied if we would see Zebra's and Elephants. People had told us that we would definitely see elephants because there are so many in Pilanesberg- but we didn't see any:( We did see zebra's but from a big distance, so we were a bit disappointed- even though we had seen loads of other animals already. Then we suddenly saw this whole group of Zebra's and they were so beautiful!! We could almost touch them- literally! That's how close we were to them.

curious baby zebra's

Giraffes!

We saw a couple of cars standing somewhere in the middle of nowhere- and being on a safari, you immediately wonder: what is it what they see? When we drove closer we didn't see anything, and then suddenly somewhere between the bushes we saw a giraffe!!

We were very lucky because right behind us the giraffe crossed the road and walked right next to us. We had a great view on this male giraffe! It was pretty exciting! Giraffes are just so beautiful! This one just wandered next to us for awhile- it's impossible I think to express what it is like to drive around and see all these beautiful animals walking around in their natural habitat!

Right before we excited the park we saw a whole group of giraffes. It's so funny- they are even too big to eat the leaves from the trees so they have to bow down. Aren't they amazing?

For me, giraffes are the most beautiful wild animals, next to zebra's! We were close to this animals! All the safari stories are apparently true- or we were just lucky:)