SA-1 Long day, short ride

Saturday 4 March and we are heading to Cape Town later today.  Stuart is never able to sleep on big traveling days, so 4am he is wide awake and delivers a cup of tea to my bedside.  Umm, thank you , I think!

Inevitably I have left my packing to the last minute, why do I do this?  But everything comes together by the time the taxi arrives at 2.30pm.

We have an overnight flight to Cape Town, but are the middle seats in a row of 4.  Not much sleep to be had!

We arrive in Cape Town at 7am and meet our guide Bevan and most of the group.  The majority have brought their own bikes, so a logistical challenge for the bus transfer.

I had imagined that we would have a short ride to test the bikes and then maybe a nap, but perhaps I should have read the trip notes!

After a lovely seafood lunch at the hotel, we first visit the penguin colony

But I rather enjoyed seeing the colony of humans watching the colony of penguins.

Next we drove on to Cape of Good Hope and I rather like the next picture, as it feels like we are suddenly very far from home.

Next it is on to a lighthouse to climb up and see the view

We also see ostriches on the way to the lighthouse

Finally, at 5pm we set off on our test bike ride through a National Park.

It's a nice easy 25km, and it is pretty clear I am going to be back marker (again), but I am used to that by now.  We have to cycle through a troop of baboons, but there is no photographic evidence, as I wasn't hanging around to find out whether or not they were friendly.

Finally, we end the day at a nice funky over water restaurant 

But what a long day, starting at 4am Saturday and ending 10pm Sunday, we all sleep like logs that night!