At The Foot of Table Mountain

Breakfast outside at Arnold's cafe, Kloof Street with a view of Table Mountain

Quick Tips:

- Book at least a day ahead for the ferry to Robben Island.

- I was disappointed with the Canal Walk shopping centre. On the plus side, it is only a 10-minute drive outside Cape Town, has over 400 shops, and is open until 9pm most nights. However, I found the quality of goods inferior and a poor value for the money.

I preferred Camps Bay to the beaches at Clifton. Camps Bay has a grass verge so you can avoid alot of the sand. We had been warned that the water would be too cold to swim in but that was not our experience. In fact it was exhilerating to dip into the cold seawater after the burning sun. I noticed that only black people swam there. I found the sea at Clifton too wild for swimming.

Best Way To Get Around:

We hired a car from Alamo before we left Ireland. We chose a Nissan Almera (1.6) with air-conditioning, which we picked up at the Cape Town airport and returned at the Port Elizabeth airport. It worked out to be about €600, and petrol came to about €100. Even in Cape Town, I would recommend hiring a car, as public transport seemed to be infrequent.

Taxis seemed to be relatively expensive in Capetown - between 7 and 12 rand per kilometre. The standard of cars is varied. One taxi we got barely made it up a hill. However, they are still worth getting, as I would not walk alone in Cape Town at night.

The Mount Nelson hotel is over 100 years old, and it retains its old- world colonial atmosphere. It does not take much imagination to let your mind drift back a century and imagine the ex-pats sipping gin and tonics to distract themselves from the Anglo-Boer war.

Anyway, we went for afternoon tea mainly because Michael Winner, the Sunday Times columnist, regards it as the best in the world. I don’t do afternoon tea that often, so I am not really qualified to disagree, but I can say I really enjoyed the experience. We sat out in the verandah overlooking the lush gardens and were offered a menu of teas. Then we went up to serve ourselves from the sumptuous buffet. There were quiches, savoury pies, and of course, cucumber sandwiches. But to really appreciate Mount Nelson’s afternoon tea, you need a sweet tooth; there was carrot cake, chocolate cake, lots of fresh fruit, and a delicious strawberry cheesecake. Cheesecake is notoriously difficult to get right, but the confectioner in the Mount Nelson succeeded—the base was crunchy and the topping was creamy and not cloyingly sweet.

The service was warm and attentive, even though, as backpackers, we are probably not their usual clientele. We sat on the sun loungers for the afternoon, until we had sampled nearly everything. All of this for 100ZAR.

Situated at the top of the clock tower on the V&A waterfront, it is regarded as being among South Africa’s top-10 restaurants. I loved the warm and spacious dining room, though the paintings are not what I would have chosen. Our waiter was Prince, and he was friendly and efficient.

To start, we had the gratinated mussels, chilled tomato soup, and smoked chicken salad. We all chose sirloin steak as the main course. The steak was slightly tough, but in general, we enjoyed the experience. It cost us about 200ZAR, including a bottle of wine per person, which is a good value by Irish standards.

A free bottle of wine with our meal attracted us to it, but we went back for the warm welcome and the wide-ranging menu. The menu is quite eclectic – I had crocodile ribs to start. I would suggest to even unadventurous eaters to try it. The ribs are more like cartilage than bones, and the meat is like a slightly greasy chicken. The sauce the meat was dipped in was delicious, as was the gooseberry relish accompanying the ribs. I had prawns as a main course, and the others had a gi-normous salad and steak, respectively. We all really enjoyed our meal. Be warned: The portions are big here. Come hungry. I can’t remember the exact cost, but we all felt it passed the value-for-money test.

We went back for breakfast another day. Again, the menu was varied and a good value. The breakfast would set up for the day. I have a feeling that if I lived in Cape Town, it’s the kind of restaurant I would keep returning to.

I would really recommend Baia, on the waterfront, for a memorable meal. The beautiful harbour views, wonderful service, and first-class food all contribute to create a wonderful atmosphere. Our meal there was one to make you think that God is in his heaven and all is right with the world. We had cocktails as aperitifs, and I had the rocket, pear, and gorgonzola salad as a starter, which was light and delicious. As a main course, I had a seafood casserole, which was too big for even my substantial appetite. We were also given a free bottle of wine, which, of course, increased our feel-good quotient significantly. It is definitely the kind of place to linger over a bottle of wine and admire the view. If you go to one restaurant in Cape Town, go here.

A visit to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, is definitely worthwhile. We had to book a day in advance. The 40-minute boat journey is pleasant--plenty of photos opps of Table Mountain. Although it was difficult to hear the recorded commentary on the boat, the one thing I gleaned from it is that Bartholomew Diaz and his crew thought the island was safer than the mainland, as there were fewer cannibals there!

We were bussed around the island to see the main sights, like Robert Sobukwe’s little house, the leper colony, and the lime quarry. This is where most of the apartheid prisoners spent their days. Many of them were doctors and lawyers and therefore unused to manual labour. Some of the wardens used to urinate in their mouths if they were found slacking. However, Nelson Mandela encouraged the ANC prisoners to befriend the wardens.

The most moving part of the visit is the tour of the actual prison, which is conducted by a former inmate. After the tour, you are allowed about half an hour to wander around the cells yourself. In some of the cells there are recollections of former prisoners–-one that stuck with me was an inmate who took great pride in making clothing pegs, as they were not allowed them. I would have loved more time to meander around the cells. I also missed the penguin colony. Despite the slightly rushed nature of the tour, it really does ‘bring history to life’. Go--and if you can, read Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom before you visit.

Mama Africa’s is a bar/restaurant which, as you may guess from its name, has an African theme. Tourists are definitely its target market, which might put some people off. However, the music is wonderful--tribal drumming, hip-hop, even a bit of opera. I am still listening to the CD I bought there. Our best nights out in South Africa were in Mama Africa's. I heard the food was good here also, although you will have to put up with gyrating bodies around you.

We decided to burn off some of the rich South African food by climbing Table Mountain. We decided to take the Platelip Gorge route. It is very poorly signposted – I wonder if this is deliberate so people use the overpriced cable car (ZAR 570). The start of this hike is off the Talfelberg Road, about 1km past the lower cable-car station. The Lonely Planet guide said that you have to be reasonably fit – I would argue that you have to be very fit. My sister is a triathlete, and she found it tough. All the usual advice applies – bring enough water, sunscreen, and a jacket.

The view from the top is worth it. It’s great to feel you climbed to the top of one of Africa’s best-known landmarks. We walked across the massif to Maclear's Beacon, which is Table Mountain’s highest point at 1,084m. It took about 2 hours to climb up, but only 4 minutes down by cable car.

The drive along the False Bay coast (M4) to Simons Town is very scenic. A navy base is here, as it is safer for anchorage than Table Bay. The penguin colony at Simon’s Town is very touristy. We barely managed to get a parking space. However, it’s worth a pit stop, as it is well laid-out and the information panels are informative. The penguins look quite lethargic on land, but can reach speeds of 24mph in the water. Like myself, they are fond of their anchovies. Because they bray like donkeys, they are sometimes called jackass penguins.

We continued on along the excellent South African roads to the Cape of Good Hope. We were taught in school that it (Cape Point) was the most southerly point in Africa. It isn’t, but it is the most southwestern point. It was impossible to get a picture of ourselves and the sign saying it was the Cape of Good Hope with the swarms of Japanese tourists. You can walk to Cape Point from this sign – it takes about 1.5 hours (there and back). We walked up the cliff to the disused lighthouse. It’s not used anymore, as it could not be seen at night. Civil servants make mistakes all over the world! It is now a tourist shop. We got the funicular down. A baboon was sitting on our car when we went to leave.

We drove back to Cape Town via Chapman’s Peak Drive, which is spectacular. I was really impressed by a couple who stopped off on the way home from work at one of the viewing points with a bottle of wine and two glasses. They watched the sun go down with a nice Pinotage. That’s what I call beating the traffic!

I had mixed feelings about doing a township tour, as I didn’t want residents to think that we were gawping zoo-like at their lives. On the other hand, we wanted to share some of the tourism dollars with people other than those owned the fancy shops along the waterfront. An escorted tour seemed the easiest and safest way. After a bit of research, we took the Cape Capers township experience (http://www.tourcapers.co.za/).

The tour cost ZAR270 for the afternoon. We were lucky enough to get Faisal Gangat, the owner of the company and winner of Cape tourism tour guide of the year 2003/2004, as our guide. Faisal previously worked in marketing, but sold his Merc in 2002 and bought a minibus to set himself up as a tour guide. He collected us and drove us out to the township of Langa. Faisal is of Indian extraction, and on the way, he pointed out where his wife was born in District Six. Her family was forced out in the ‘60s, but the story has a happy ending. Faisal’s father-in-law has been resettled back in District Six. As Faisal said now, he can live his remaining days at peace.

Faisal is fluent in Kho San and was involved with the ANC, and so seems to be respected in the Langa townships. Faisal focuses on the positive – the AIDS awareness initiatives and bottom-up enterprise schemes. We visited a community centre where people sell their crafts. I bought a mug there. Then we went to Tsoga environmental centre, which encourages people to be environmentally aware and to grow their own food. From there a local guide brought us on a walking tour. He showed us the hostels where, during the apartheid regime, people recruited as domestic servants, etc., from the homelands stayed. In these hostels, people were separated from their husbands, wives, children, and family of origin. Now, they are a bit more humane and house families. I was still dismayed by the lack of space (eight people in a box room) and the stench caused by people living is such close proximity to each other. I also felt very uncomfortable invading people’s privacy by walking around their homes, especially while they were there. It is one thing I would like to see changed in the township tour. These hostels are slowly being demolished and replaced with more modern flats, but they are still cramped by Western standards.

We were like pied pipers to the children – some looking for stuff, some just curious. We were told not to give anything to individual children, so we gave colouring books and crayons to the preschool.

Our guide also showed us the informal settlement, which makes the worst halting site in Ireland look plush. People living here do not have access to water or electricity. Then our guide showed us the "Beverly Hills" of Langa, where the professionals live. It was the public facade of Langa disguising the much higher level of deprivation behind. That said, it is still very different from the homes of doctors and lawyers here.

After the walking tour, we had a traditional and tasty meal at the cookery school there.