Sights of Cape Town South Africa HOHO Bus

Princess Cruises – The Sights of Cape Town.

Sailing into Cape Town, South Africa is just perfect – great sunrise followed by beautiful blue skies, wonderful warm weather, absolutely flat seas and we are headed for a very large city in the distance that gets more impressive as we get closer. As soon as our destination comes into view, you can see that this city seems to sit in an arm chair because it is surrounded by an impressive group of majestic sandstone mountains, the most renowned is the famous flat topped Table Mountain with Lion Head on the right and Devil’s Peak to the left. (Table Mountain is renowned for when the clouds build up and roll in over the top of the mountain making it look like it has a white table cloth on it. It would be fantastic if we saw this occurrence during our stay.)

Sailing into the beautiful harbour at Cape Town with Table Mountain in the background.

We have 3 days and 2 nights to explore the City of Cape Town and its surrounding area. The Sun Princess is docked very close to the city and about 15 minutes’ walk to the fairly new man made Victoria and Albert (V & A) Water Front area, which is now the most popular tourist attraction in Cape Town. We have decided to check this area out on the first day, as well as ride the big red Hop On - Hop Off - Bus. The next day we will go on a ships tour for half a day to the wine area of Stellenbosch followed by more riding on the HOHO bus and on Saturday we will be on an all day tour down to the Cape of Good Hope.

The Waterfront at Cape Town.

 

Me with some of the many statuses at the Waterfront.

The V & A Waterfront is just wonderful. It is a very interesting small enclosed harbour surrounded by many interesting shops, beautiful restaurants, ship yards (dry docks), apartments and historic buildings and statues. There are several old swing bridges that open and close every now and then stopping pedestrian traffic to let boats moored in the safe part of the harbour out into the larger parts of the harbour.

One of the large old sheds at the Water Front has been turned into the best craft market I have ever seen. The quality and variety of the hand made goods on display and for sale is just beautiful. There are a lot of African souvenirs, colourful clothing, fabulous jewellery, gorgeous creative art, glass ware, interesting pottery and magnificent paintings. It is a wonderful area to just wander through and browse.

The Hop On Hop Off Bus.

The Red Bus has 4 routes you can travel and is exceptional value for about $28 for a 2 day ticket – this also includes a 1 hour harbour cruise and a sunset bus tour. We decide to ride the red route first and this takes us through the city centre and out of town and half way up Table Mountain to where the cable car starts. There are fantastic views from up here - right out across the whole of Cape Town, out to sea and down to the harbour - we can even see our home away from home and sitting on the top deck of the bus gives us a great opportunity to see everything.

The view over Cape Town as we drive up Table Mountain.

Next the bus takes us to the other side of Table Mountain, through lovely suburbs built between the ocean and a substantial mountain range known as the Twelve Apostles and then we travel back towards Cape Town along the beautiful beaches that front the Atlantic Ocean.

View of the City.

 

View of the top of Table Mountain where the cable car goes to.

After lunch, back at the Waterfront, we board a small red boat which takes us on our journey (with commentary) around the harbour and out into the area where there are large ships and fishing vessels being loaded and unloaded. There are many seals frolicking in the waters of the harbour and they seem to wave their flippers at you as you pass by. The weather is just perfect for enjoying this adventure.

The little red boat we drove around the harbour in.

The view of the clock tower on the Waterfront

 

One sleepy old seal rest in a tire.

Later in the day we board the hoho bus again and take the blue route. This time we are taken much further out of town into areas where there are larger houses and blocks, past the back of Table Mountain and the famous Kirstenbosch Gardens. We even pass large fenced areas that have zebra and wildebeest grazing in them. There are many large pine trees and eucalyptus trees and I think these look fantastic and they give lots of shade and protection from the hot sun. Unfortunately we were told they do more harm than good and there is a program in operation to eradicate them by 2020 and replace them with trees indigenous to Africa. This is going to be a huge job as there is just so many of them.

Lions Peak with some of the many pine trees on Table Mountain.

 

About ½ way around the route we get off this bus and board the purple bus to go and view the wine area of Constantia for about 30 minutes and then back on the blue bus through many different suburbs.

Travelling along this route, we see a large shanty town made from old bits of timber and corrugated iron situated on the side of a hill and glistening in the sunlight. This is the township of Imizamo Yethu and it is where thousands of very poor native African people live all huddled together. They have moved to the city looking for work and this is all they can afford. We would like to stop and do the walking tour of the township on offer but time is too short – so this will have to wait till next time.

The blue route then takes us to the beautiful Hout Bay and Camps Bay before driving us past the beaches that we saw in the morning. These beaches now look totally different - as the tide is now completely out and is exposing vast rocky outcrops of boulders and vast expanses of kelp at many of the beaches.

Hout Bay.

Camps Bay.

 

The beautiful beaches we travel by in the bus.

 

Lovely beaches on the Atlantic coastline.

 

View towards Lions Peak.

We get off at one of the sandy beaches and sit and watch the people on the beach walking and playing volley ball – we even get conned into buying an art work from a seller on the beach. We do not get back to the main bus stop in Cape Town till about 6pm and even though we had planned to do the sunset ride we were just too tired for another 3hour tour so we start walking along the harbour front, spending time looking through and purchasing many post cards from the big African Trading Centre on the water front before crossing over the swing bridge and heading back to the ship. We have been out for 10 hours, seen lots of interesting things and been to many interesting places.

My opinion of Cape Town is that it is a fantastically interesting and varied city. From what I have seen - it is clean, has wonderful beaches, the people of all colours seem to be mixing and working well together, they are friendly and welcoming and you seem to get good value for your money. I would have no hesitation in returning to this part of South Africa sometime in the future.

 

 The next day after our morning tour to Stellenbosch we again ride the hoho bus. This time we go into the city centre and board the yellow bus which takes us past many of the major buildings within the City of Cape Town. These include the Parliament Buildings, the President’s Residence, the Old Fort, many different churches and mosques and District 6 - which was an old township completely bulldozed by the apartheid regime in the 70s and it has been left completely vacant and undeveloped as a monument and reminder of the suppression that occurred during this time. We then take the red bus again to complete the 1.5 hour loop ending back at the water front. This time it is nearly 7.30pm before we get back to the ship. We are very tired but we have had great time.