I had decided to travel along the Garden Route to Durban by the Baz Bus. This is a company that specialises in the backpacker market.

When I booked my hop on hop ticket from Cape Town to Durban, I was offered a tour to the Cape of Good Hope. I took up the offer.

The bus picked me up at the hostel at 8.30 a.m. I was introduced to the other passengers. They were the usual eclectic lot – Germans, Dutch, French, Brits and Australians.

More Seals

We headed out of Cape Town along the coast. The first stop was Hout Bay. We were offered a boat trip to see some seals. It may sound that I am blasé about seeing seals. I have seen lots over the past 2 years in Tasmania, California, Chile, the Galapagos Islands, and now here.

Simon’s Town

Next stop was Simon’s Bay which was established by the British as a naval base. It is still a naval base, obviously run by the South Africans. The guide pointed out one of the six South African submarines. There seem to be doing as well as Australia on this front, at least in terms of numbers.

The town is on False Bay. The bay got its name because the sailors looking for Cape Town Harbour, often found themselves in the ‘false’ bay by mistake.
We stopped to see a Penguin colony. Again I like I am over ‘penguined’ at the moment. Having not long been to Phillip Island in Victoria

Funny Stories

We left Simon’s Town for Cape National Park. There was a lot of road works and progress was slow. A number the passengers started to chat about their travels. Two girls from Melbourne were particularly amusing.

They had been on a ‘truck’ trip from Nairobi to Cape Town. They told of some very close encounters with wild animals including a hippopotamus. It “scared the shit out of” them.

They also told a very funny story about sky diving with a Norwegian girl who was also on their truck. They were videoed and photographed on the way down. One girls said that her face was so “contorted in the photo that she could hardly recognise herself”. She also “doubted if her mother would have recognised if it was her”.

However, the “Norwegian looked as though she a just won Miss World and was about to collect her trophy – what bitch – ha ha ha”.

Bike Ride

We arrived in the park and the driver stopped the bus. The bus was towing a trailer with twenty bicycles. All the passengers with the exception of one took the option of a short 10 kilometres or so ride to our next stop for lunch.
It was good to be on a bike again after such a long break.

I had my Garmin, but as often the case when don’t put by glasses on, I managed to turn the timer off rather than on.
I was however, wearing my FitBit. When I synchronised the device in the evening, I was impressed to find that it had worked out that I had been riding a bike for 25 minutes or so.

A Dutchman’s view of Afrikaans

After the ride we stopped for lunch. I was simple – sandwiches and fruit – but very good.
I chatted with a Dutch bloke who had some interesting things to say about the Afrikann South Africans and their language.

He described Afrikaans as being “baby Dutch”. I look this as being the same as ‘pigeon English that is used in Papua New Guinea. I told him that Fire Escape in pigeon is ‘long stair hurry up go outside’. He told me that Afrikaans is similar . He said that Battleship is in Afrikaans is ‘the ship that is not afraid of anything’

I am not sure that google translator knows about that, but it makes a funny story.

Lighthouse

The next stop was lighthouse on Cape Point. Apparently there was a problem with the lighthouse in that because it is located at the top of the cliff, it is often covered in fog. As a result it did do what it was supposed to do, that is be seen by ships. Another lighthouse was built lower down the hill.

Cape of Good Hope

We piled back onto the bus to be taken down to the Cape of Good Hope.
We all had the obligatory photos take. As usual a bunch of German tourists ignored the queue. They are amazing. I have taken to telling them: “don’t mind us, just think of this line as Poland in 1939, just walk right in and feel at home”. It upsets them and so it should.

Slow Trip Back

I was a slow trip back in the Cape Town peak (two) hour traffic.

Flickr Link
https://flic.kr/s/aHskvERSfA