Animal overdose...
May. 2nd, 2009 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sarahxWe've had a grand week here so far, despite the work.
Here's the view from our hotel room window last Sunday, on our first night in Cape Town...
And we went for a braai at Monkey Valley (boo! no monkeys! but fortunately no barbecued ones either....) It's just above Noordhoek beach, which we wandered down to briefly – and then looking at the state of the clouds scooting in beat a rapid retreat.
The work finished on Thursday, so from Friday we were officially on holiday. Hurrah! And the holiday started yesterday with an exploration of Cape Point with our host Kelly. And there was rather a lot of wildlife.
First stop, we climbed up Kanonkop, where there's an old cannon on the hillside. And we spotted bontebok – a sort of large white-bottomed antelope – on the way up, albeit rather in the distance so somewhat blurry.
Next stop was Cape Point itself for lunch. We'd got incredibly lucky with the weather – it was belting down on the drive from Cape Town, stopped just in time for the two-hour walk not to be too damp, and then started again on the way to lunch. Fortunately we were inside! But despite being at the top of the cliffs, we couldn't even see the sea through the murk. And this meant the baboons who inhabit the area begging for food were nowhere to be seen. Boo. No monkeys.
We then drove down to the Cape of Good Hope, and miraculously the weather lifted on the way and it was bathed in sunshine by the time we got there. Although the ostriches were looking rather damp.
As was this rather large (and scrawny) unidentified bovine creature.
Furthest southwest we've been!
I was, however, still rather disappointed at the lack of monkeys. Not for long. One of the baboon colonies was lying in wait on the way back to catch unsuspecting motorists. Yay! Baby monkeys!
Monkey!
Monkey in a tree! With baby monkeys!
Monkey and baby! Look closely and you can make out the baby clinging to her chest...
And if monkeys wasn't enough to die of teh cute, our final stop was to see the African penguin colony just outside Simons Town. It's just like Happy Feet!!
More penguins!
Nesting penguins!
And yes, we did check. Squashed penguins are not a good thing.
We're now in Franschhoek in the Winelands. We plan to do extensive research into the quality of the local brew while we're here...
Here's the view from our hotel room window last Sunday, on our first night in Cape Town...
And we went for a braai at Monkey Valley (boo! no monkeys! but fortunately no barbecued ones either....) It's just above Noordhoek beach, which we wandered down to briefly – and then looking at the state of the clouds scooting in beat a rapid retreat.
The work finished on Thursday, so from Friday we were officially on holiday. Hurrah! And the holiday started yesterday with an exploration of Cape Point with our host Kelly. And there was rather a lot of wildlife.
First stop, we climbed up Kanonkop, where there's an old cannon on the hillside. And we spotted bontebok – a sort of large white-bottomed antelope – on the way up, albeit rather in the distance so somewhat blurry.
Next stop was Cape Point itself for lunch. We'd got incredibly lucky with the weather – it was belting down on the drive from Cape Town, stopped just in time for the two-hour walk not to be too damp, and then started again on the way to lunch. Fortunately we were inside! But despite being at the top of the cliffs, we couldn't even see the sea through the murk. And this meant the baboons who inhabit the area begging for food were nowhere to be seen. Boo. No monkeys.
We then drove down to the Cape of Good Hope, and miraculously the weather lifted on the way and it was bathed in sunshine by the time we got there. Although the ostriches were looking rather damp.
As was this rather large (and scrawny) unidentified bovine creature.
Furthest southwest we've been!
I was, however, still rather disappointed at the lack of monkeys. Not for long. One of the baboon colonies was lying in wait on the way back to catch unsuspecting motorists. Yay! Baby monkeys!
Monkey!
Monkey in a tree! With baby monkeys!
Monkey and baby! Look closely and you can make out the baby clinging to her chest...
And if monkeys wasn't enough to die of teh cute, our final stop was to see the African penguin colony just outside Simons Town. It's just like Happy Feet!!
More penguins!
Nesting penguins!
And yes, we did check. Squashed penguins are not a good thing.
We're now in Franschhoek in the Winelands. We plan to do extensive research into the quality of the local brew while we're here...
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 04:09 pm (UTC)Of course I didn't bring the EOS10D so they were all taken with my battered old Olympus C-50Z (must get around to replacing it), and a fair amount of Photoshop cropping was required on most of the animal pix to make up for the lack of zoom!
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 01:29 am (UTC)