Some birds can't fly

On Dec. 29th, Martin roused the troops out of bed for an 8 AM departure.  The agenda consisted of Camps Bay, Chapman Peak Drive, the Penguins at Houts Bay, lunch and a little afternoon shopping in Simon Town.

Camps Bay is the only point in the cape where you can watch the sunset into the Atlantic.  A great little spot with shops and restaurants.  We passed through on scenic drive up Chapman Preak Drive.

Up Close and Beautiful 

For there it was up Chapman Peak Drive.

The views back down were amazing if you look at the ocean in these photos, you can see how windy it really was.

The family. Yes, everyone is smiling

Panorama of Camps Bay and Sentinel Point

We continued around towards Cape Point.  On the way, we visited an Ostrich Farm.  The males are black and the female are grey.  Martin discussed the markets for ostrich leather, feathers and meat. We were eventually run off by a troop of baboons who crossed the farm. Ashley has some great video of a baboon falling out of a tree.  Eventually, the alpha male got a little too close for Martin's comfort and we scurried into our van.

Which way did he go?

Which way did he go?

The alpa male before he tired of us.

It was on from there past Cape Point and on to Houts Bay.  There we watched the cape penguins on the beach.  There was a colony of somewhere above 1000 that uses this beach as a nesting site.  It was really cool seeing these animals outside doing their own thing.  Between all of us, we have an inordinate amount of penguin pictures.

The colony

These two are protecting the egg 

This guys is looking for a friend

Mom, Dad what are those 2 penguins doing?

After that we stopped in Fish Hoek for lunch at the Galley.  The owner is one Herbie Eichel.  Here is a little knowledge about our new friend.

1. Has established a charity to educate children from the townships.

2. He once lost his head waitress to Nelson Mandela. Mandela had to ask her three times before she would quit.

3. He has been in this location for 25+ years.  Martin insists that he sits in the back and counts money now.

4. He has a family photo with Mandela, because of his charity work.

5. He once held the world record for flipping a single pancake the most times. This was in the 70s and was over 10,600 times in like 67 minutes.  It was roughly around 3 flips a second average.

6. He once held the worlds record for flipping the worlds largest pancake.

Herbie's seafood platter. 

The beach by Herbie's restaurant 

Look at the Sand. Do you see it???

13 year olds jumping into the New Year.

From here we did a little shopping.  Troy and I went to a bakery.  The A&B oily duck needed some bread.  The girls did a little shopping.  Martin worried about the lines and the wait.

If anyone got short changed, it was Elle.  She want to stop in St James and take some photos of these cool old colored little beach houses. What she got was an over the shoulder 35 Km/hr glance as we drove back to the hotel.  Luckily, Elle is cool so she took it all in stride.

Wine, bread and olive oil for dinner and bed.