Sunday 9/6-2013
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| Tourists asking me and Sheri for pictures |
It’s been over a week now, and I'm heading to Gansbaai
tomorrow morning at 8:15 to start working with Marine Dynamics for 4 weeks. So
much has happened since I landed last Saturday here in Cape Town. The first
couple of days the weather was horrible, but I still had great fun. The first
day I met Sheri (her blog) from Canada, who I shared room with. She is travelling Africa
and Europe on her own and is doing a lot of different volunteer work, I must
say she has inspired me to travel even more. She also recommended going to
Oudtshoorn, an "ostrich city" I later went to.
I also got to know three Americans who arrived last Monday.
They are travelling the world over 90 days and spent a whole week in Cape Town,
sharing room with me at the Sunflower Stop Backpacker Hostel. I also got to
know Laura, another roommate, from Brazil, quite well before she left this
morning.
On the Wednesday I rented a car and drove 530km to the Bloukrans Bridge, it took me about 5-6 hours,
and I must say the roads here are like heaven compared to the roads in
Norway/England. The speed limit is usually 120km/h and The Garden Route (which
I drove) is amazing. The nature is so beautiful, that it’s a shame I have to
concentrate on the roads most of the time, because I wish I could see more of
it.
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| Me and Daniel, getting ready for the big jump |
I spent one night at a lodge by the Bloukrans Bridge and met
Daniel and his friend, who I jumped the bungee jump with on Thursday morning.
To jump off a 216m high bridge was something I've never done before, it’s hard
to explain but flying down in such a speed, without feeling connected to
anything was scary, but also very thrilling. It gave me such a kick that I
decided to jump again. The second jump was backwards and was almost as exciting
as the first one. I filmed the jumps with my GoPro camera, but still, it
doesn’t show the adrenalin that pumps through your body during and after the
jump.
After the jump I drove up to Oudtshoorn and booked in at
Backpackers Paradise, which Sheri had recommended. They offered activities where
they drove me up to a mountain (1500m above sea level) with a Backie (pickup)
and then I went down on a mountain bike. The 54km trip offered several stops
where I could explore caves, ride camels, elephants, ostriches etc. So I did
the cave exploring which contained crawling in small narrow caves at Cango
Caves. Unfortunately I didn’t find any diamonds. I went back on my bike and
stopped at an ostrich farm where I did a tour and got to sit on one of the
birds. I wanted to ride one, but I was too heavy for the ostrich.
The last stop
I did was at Cango Wildlife Park, where they had a lot of exotic animals. I was
really keen on doing the Crocodile Cage Dive, but since it’s winter here in
Africa the crocodiles don’t do much other than sleeping it didn’t happen. I got
back to the Backpacker Paradise and had an ostrich barbeque with other youths.
One was from England, one from France and one from Norway. We had a few beers
and then the two South African, who was working behind the bar offered us to
play a game. We ended up drinking heavily and the next morning was a bit more
painful than predicted.
Saturday I planned on driving at 7AM, but that didn’t
happen, so I drove off about 10-11AM instead. It was about 450km from
Oudtshoorn to Cape Town, so in total, over 3 days, I’d been driving 1250km.
When I got back to the hostel in Cape Town I got told that one of the Americans
got arrested the night before for asking
a police officer if he was drunk (ironically the American was the drunk
one). He got bailed out the very next morning for 100 rand (£7). Saturday we
spent the rest of the day chilling and going to bed early since we all had had
a rough night before.
Sunday (today) I and the Americans planned on going on a
road trip to Cape of Good Hope, so we drove
off around 9AM, but the weather was
so good and Table Mountain was so clear that we decided to walk up the mountain
before going on the road trip. We hiked up in a fast pace and got a few
pictures taken before returning back down. The view up there was stunning, and
I'm really glad I managed to get up there while it was clear. I’d been walking
up there twice earlier in the week, but both times it was foggy/cloudy. Hiking
up Table Mountain was definitely on my “to do” list in Cape Town so I'm happy
that we got it done before leaving tomorrow. We drove down the west coast line
and had a good look at the views; it was a perfect day for this trip, since it
was sunny and warm, not a single cloud on the sky. We drove through Fish Hoek
and had a great dinner by the sea before continuing to Cape of Good Hope. We
got there about an hour before they closed, so we ran around and got some pictures
before driving back up to Cape Town. |
| Me and my 3 American friends on top of Table Mountain. Cape Town in the background |
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