Clifton beach

Friday saw us go down to the beach. There are two main beach areas, Camps Bay which is the most popular, and Clifton just north of there. It has four beaches (named First - Fourth), the first two are apparently too secluded, third is the unofficial gay beach and fourth is the nicest. We got the minibus taxi down as far as Sea Point which is still a fair way away from where we wanted to be. These minibuses are reminiscent of the tube in that they lurch around alarmingly and are excessively crammed, although they differ in that you can't stand up but are at least guaranteed part of a seat and are a quarter of the price. We then walked round the coastal road and were pretty stunned by what we saw. This area is the answer to the Cote d'Azur (or perhaps Sandbanks) except it is clean, has stunning scenery and every house is also a fortress.

I'm sure I've seen this company ADT at work in Britain. At home I don't think they do armed response though.

This beach was quite different from any I've been on before. All along this stretch of coastline the houses/castles reach right down to the seafront, indeed in some places they are built into cliffs and the waves crash onto rocks below ground/-6th floor balconies. On the road level these houses (blocks of flats really) are simply a door into a lift and a ramp into a larger lift for the cars, preserving the view for the other side of the road. Incredible. On beachy stretches, footpaths snake down between the mansions to the beach level, on which there are no facilities like cafes, restaurants, chipshops, car parks, contraceptive outreach centres etc like in most of the UK except for a very clean and well-maintained toilet block with everything signed by the "Clifton Villagers' Association" and some guys on the beach selling ice creams from cool boxes and renting out umbrellas (pictured) at R25 for the day which we thought was a decent deal given the total lack of shade and my total lack of melanin.

The beach itself was beautiful. Clean smooth white sand, not busy, very peaceful, azure sea, even a few palm trees for effect. Sandra got quite agitated by the bearded man who left his headscarfed wife in a coat and trousers under a brolly while he went swimming, but aside from them... well, see her so-called revision photo above.

And I remembered sun cream! Unlike the previous day but I have forgiven myself as we didn't have summer at home this year and I couldn't remember the last time I'd used it.

Green Point

Thursday we spent exploring Green Point which is this area around the football stadium.

The stadium itself I haven't actually bothered to take a photo of yet. It's opposite our hostel (which is why I was so surprised when I heard they'd been disappointed with the world cup, but I suppose it depends on which teams were there) and is bowl shaped in white. They're still building the shiny road arrangement which was meant to be there for the travellers.

The park behind was closed for some reason, apparently still building it again, but we walked round and found THE SEA.

Moving round there was a lighthouse which is now some way inland, along a beautiful stretch of coastline. It really gave the feel of being the Atlantic and the waves were huge, causing us to abandon sections of the coast path, sometimes in a hurry.

Further round we decided to quench the thirsty of our long journey on a rooftop. The theme, set to be "now we are really on holiday", naturally led me to buy the Economist, I still haven't fully worked that one out.

I also spotted their Pimm's selection (had to order one of course). They had on offer classic Pimm's with lemonade to which I had to beg them not to add pineapple, and with ginger beer. Now in the UCL Conservative Society we created a few summers ago our house cocktail. Our patron is Nicholas Soames and it was invented at the bash after campaigning for him so it was called a Soames, and consists of Pimms and ginger beer. Naturally I was so delighted at seeing a Soames on sale in South Africa that I had to record it.

Then Sandra came back to the hostel and found some more Germans to talk to. Naturally.

The City

I'm going to try to go through what we've been doing recently.

On Wednesday we tried to explore the town a bit. We wandered around quite a lot, from our hostel down to Loop St and Long St which are the sort of social centre of town. Off Long Street we found a market selling all kinds of souvenirs, mostly drums and masks etc but quite a lot of qorld cup stuff too, and definitely a few vuvuzelas. I have so far resisted the urge but it won't be long. On that square was an art gallery looking at apartheid, the resistance to it and the art from blacks at that time. Some of it was great, some very dark and naturally some pretty poor (modern art again...) The building was interesting, all ancient furniture, you could imagine when the building was new.

After this we went to find some lunch in "Pick n Pay", South Africa's answer to Tesco's with a typically direct name policy it seems. Good except that it doesn't sell multipacks of chocolate bars so I am breaking my Mars-a-day habit. Eaten in the Company's Garden. When the Dutch started settling Cape Town in the late 1600s they sent a gardener out here to plant a vegetable garden to help fulfil the Cape's purpose of warding off scurvy. Over time this has evolved into a beautiful botanical garden, all wonderful trees and plants from all over (not just SA!) It has also developed rather aggressive wildlife, pigeons and squirrels, one of which hopped up and sat next to me before I leapt out of my seat to defend my Danish. Here is an inquisitive duck lookalike trying his chances, it was a huge thing which initially crept up behind me which was a surprise.

And the tenacious squirrel:

There was a lovely rose garden:

We also found the South African National Gallery which we are reserving for what we Europeans call a rainy day, but here they are more worried about wind as when it comes from the South East it can reach 80 mph apparently, they call it the Cape Doctor.

Then we wandered across to find the South African Parliament. Being boring types we found this very interesting. They have tours which are another rainy day plan. Sandra risked extraordinary rendition by taking a picture of it.

And later discovered what looked like an interesting building so we took a photo of it anyway. Pretty sure it's no longer an insurance company and I've forgotten who the chap in the foregound is.