Neasan O’Neill

Day 4 by far the longest and most packed day.

We started off at some god awful time of the morning through a really haevy fog which lifted as soon as the sun rose. The reason for our early rising was to get to Aquila Safari Park to see some “wild animals”. We got there pretty early, had breakfast and hung around waiting for the 4X4 to turn up. There was a load of people around including “The Deliverance Twins” two English kids that looked about “special”. Turlough muttered something about “killing” someone if we ended up in the 4X4 with them. Thankfully we didn’t and we headed off to see the Big 5. The Big 5 used to mean the 5 most dangerous animals to hunt now it’s just sort of a byword for the 5 animals you should see if you go to Africa. The 5 are Lion, Rhino, Cape Buffalo, Elephant and Leopard. Our tour guide explained that he would try to show us 4 out of 5 but that we’d not see a Leopard as it is nocturnal (the cynical would say that their lack of any leopards would hinder you but I’m not that cynical). We did get to see the other 4 (see links above) as well as ostrich, crocodile, peacock, spring bok, giraffe, hippo , cheetah and zebra. There was a sighting of the great ape, but we weren’t sure.

It was a three hour drive in all, with a quick break in the middle for some water and stuff but we got back to the main complex in time for a good feeding at lunch time and made it back to Stellenbosch in the late afternoon and some of us grabbed a well deserved rest. That evening the family went separate ways and T and I went out for a few beers and grabbed food in Arizona Spur an Eddie Rockets-alike place with a western theme.

Later days,
Halo.

So day 3 This was our first settled day really as we’d gotten into the apartment and seen the town of Stellenbosch.

The order of business today was a drive down the coast through a few towns, like Gordon’s Bay, to see the countryside and the maniac “drivers”. The best part of the day was popping down to Stony Point to see the penguins. It was great watching the comical but vulnerable little fellows and you could get up pretty close. According to Mum and Dad there are usually more around, was it a bit too hot for them or something?

We got back to Stellenbosch that evening, took it easy(more footie on the TV) and had dinner in The Wijnhuis which is a nice restaurant which is also a wine merchant.

Later days,
Halo.

Well it was the start of day 2 and after spending the night in The Victoria & Alfred Hotel it was time to see something of Capetown. We were rolling on to Stellenbosch in the afternoon but we’d be back in Capetown at the end of the week so we decided to just take a bus tour of Capetown. It was a good way for T and I to get our bearings and see a bit of the town, we got views like this, great pieces of art like this one and of course to actually start hanging out as a family. They even have a piece of the Berlin Wall.

Before we went on the tour dad grabbed the car we’d be calling ours for the week. It was a Merc of some description. So all jumped in and headed to Stellenbosch, stopping on the way to do a bit of shopping as we were self catering. We couldn’t get beer though as they only sell wine in supermarkets no beer or spirits so we had to hold off on the alcohol .

We hit Stellenbosch and got the keys to our flat and took it easy, they had live premiership games on TV(this was Saturday afternoon) so we watched them after getting some beer (castle lager, castle milk stout and windhoek lager). Then the folks showed us around briefly (they have been down a few times before about 14 or so and own a house in Stellenbosch) and we got some great Indian in Bukhara and T and I headed out for some more drink and got bottled beer in a trendy student pub for about â?¬1 each twas great.

We eventually went home to get some sleep.

Later days,
Halo.

So I’m eventually getting down to this. It was a family trip so it was me, Mum, Dad and Turlough.

I took a ton of photos and put a load on Flickr. There are 340 in total and you can see them all in order here.

The trip started very early on Friday the 6th of April we were in Dublin airport by about 4 in the morning to get our flight to Schipol in Amsterdam. We were then on an 11 hour flight to Capetown. The flying wasn’t too bad we weren’t in Schipol for very long and the long flight didn’t feel that long they were around with food a few times, we had an entertainment centre in the back of the seat in front if we wanted it and there was plenty of leg room really. I had my DS, The Satanic Verses and MP3 player but in the end just played Minish Cap on the DS for most of the journey.

We got into Capetown pretty late but we had time to get to the hotel (The Victoria & Alfred) and grab some pub grub in The Ferryman before we hit the hay at about midnight Capetown time (only an hour ahead).

As you can see we didn’t do much so the photos from Day 1 are a little sparse.

Later days,
Halo.