Cape Point Tour!

This is a photo I took of two penguins holding hands and kissing. Ah.Fricking.Dorable.

Oh my goodness. I say this all the time, but there is SO much to write about. To get started, the Cape Point Tour.
We began our tour in Table View, on the top left of the map, in the area across from Robben Island. This is also where I'm staying, in relation to Cape Town. We started the day by heading south towards Camps Bay and stopping in Hout Bay for a 10 minute cruise to Seal Island.
Not exactly the most original name for an island covered in seals, but it does get the point across.



The seals here in Hout Bay are at less of a risk than others along the coast line from Great White's as the waters in the area are those of the cold Atlantic ocean, so I didn't see any single flippered seals swimming around in circles, freaking out their whole families.
(Pause for acknowledgement of Arrested Development joke... and continuing on)

They were pretty impressive on this island, loads of them everywhere with lots of pups wandering around. The pups looked like black lab puppies with flippers. We get lots of penguins that come in with seal bites, so I think it was good for me to see them up close - takes some of the villany out of them. The birds with seal bites are also usually the most cantankerous of the birds. You can hardly blame them, because they've either got huge gouges in their abdomens or wounds on their feet, but man, they are not fun to handle.

From Hout Bay we cut eastward across the peninsula towards Muzienberg and headed south down the coast of False Bay towards Boulder Beach. There's a large penguin colony here.


The guy with the pink spot and metal arm band is a SANCOB release bird. They mark all the released birds in this manner. It was pretty cool to see all of these adult birds out in their natural colony. We don't generally see a lot of adult birds at work, other than the occasional injured bird or home pen bird. It's a lot of blues.

After this and lunch, we headed down to the most south-western point of the continent of Africa. There was much confusion over this title and spent about 10 minutes in the bus trying to follow the clarification that yes, it was the most southern point of the continent, but not the most western, but of the southern points the most western (wrap your brain around that). We finally exited the bus and took some photos and wandered around a bit. There was a great lighthouse over looking a peak where we took some of the following photos.


The girls I took the tour with - other AVIVA volunteers and in the center our awesome tour guide, Ursula.

Myself, House-mate Constance, and fellow volunteer, Vicky, goofing around on the Cape of Good Hope Sign.
Standing at the bottom of the Africa, windswept, sun-ripened, and incapable of smiling like a normal person.

By this point, we were knackered, as some of the volunteers from the UK would say, and piled back into the van to head home. Those of us that didn't sleep on the drive back were in bed by 9:30 PM. I haven't consistently gone to bed so early since I was probably in elementary school. By 10 PM, our house is dead silent. We're all just wiped out from volunteering.

Things will be crazy during this next week, with Christmas holidays and the penguins and all, but there is a 417, 474 (my two stumpy enemies that have joined forces - seriously) and my new favorite tiny bird, 489, who weighs less than a kg, post a-brewin'. I'll also have an update on 487 and some of my other faves before the New Year.

Until then, Happy Holidays!! Enjoy the snow, suckers!