Cape Town – Land’s End!

We just finished 6 amazing days in one of the most beautiful settings for a city in the world. Cape Town rivals Vancouver for the balance of an urban setting in the midst of amazing scenery and our pictures simply do not do it justice. We found ourselves exploring a different direction each day to chase the sun, find great beaches and explore…you definitely need a car here and be ready for a wicked learning curve on your first time driving on the left side of the road with a stick shift using your left hand!

A little history we found interesting – although it's a former UK Colony, it was originally settled and founded by Dutch which is the dominant culture and language you see everywhere. The local language of Afrikaner is derived from Dutch but there are also numerous other official languages including those with clicks and clucks which we heard occasionally as well. Overcoming the fallout of the British imposed apartheid is still an awful legacy that is very apparent and the main social concern (we saw a couple of townships that reminded me of the Tijuana barrios)…plus they are now having some serious infrastructure problems with regular power stoppages over the last few months throughout the area. The positives of the region far outweigh all that, and the lifestyle you see is one of outdoor and healthy living with bikers, runners, swimmers, and surfers.

We stayed in a small fishing village 20 minutes south of Cape Town called Hout Bay. To get there along the coast from Capetown is like driving through a series of Southern California beach towns. Camps Bay is so much like Laguna beach and is where our good friend Tessa Graham (who reminded Mark they have known each other for 27 years!?!?) is living in an amazing apartment and living a healthy active lifestyle routine we all would dream of as she goes through her first pregnancy. It has been so fantastic to be able to meet up with our great friends in far away ports on our travels. We had one very interesting dinner with Tessa and her good friend Lewis Gordon Pugh who is a British adventurer of extreme feats (swam 1km in speedos at the North Pole last year to help raise awareness for global warming) that we invite all of you to check out as not only very amazing but for an good cause: http://www.lewispugh.com/

Daily travel highlights included a trip to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope – the most South Westerly tip of the African continent, and where the currents of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans intersect creating some of the most hazardous seas in the world with many wrecks littered around the cape. The famed Baboons that used to wreak havoc at the car parks have now been culled (unfortunately) but we did have an encounter on the road in. A family of Baboons was crossing the main road to the Cape as we drove into the park and we got to watch a good 5 minute escapade of them playing and jumping on top of cars, and even a wild fight that broke out between a couple of males! On the road home we stopped at the penguin beach on the False Bay side of the Cape and then drove through Muizenberg beach that is full of surfers but also full of shark watchers posted in the cliffs! We also explored the far side of False Bay up to Betty's Bay (sheltered nicely from the prevailing South Easterlies that were howling each day) and we did a couple of drives up north of Capetown to some nice little beach towns (see the Surf Report!). A drive through Stellenbosch wine country is definitely a must too – and Mark snuck in 9 holes of golf (Hey Andy – 1 over with a crappy pair of rental clubs!)

The dollar is better than 7-1 with the Rand right now so day to day costs are very affordable….it's a long haul from anywhere (12 hour flight for us from Frankfurt) but well worth it if you can ever get here!

The Surf Report: The Cape has so many options it is crazy – and with the prevailing push from the South makes this a lot like Peru and the land of lefts and a goofy footers playground. I bought a new board after hawking my old Lopez board in Brazil – a 7'4" with a mini split tail that is really fun (thanks to Pat Frodel of DaKine for hooking me up with his local rep Reinhardt who totally looked after me!). Some "must go" spots if you ever make it here are Koelbay that is over the far side of False Bay and about 15 minutes past Gordon's Beach (beach break but outer sand bars make it a decent longer wave in the small bay). I found the best stuff north of Capetown though – Melkbosstrand is about 30kms north of town and has a little hook in the shore line that puts the wind offshore and sandbars make for some great left and right options. At about 80kms north a similar set up but more of a point break is Ysterfontein and the gem of the coast is about 230kms north called Elands Bay (Watch Endless Summer 2 and you'll see a great segment from there…and see my video clip - had to upload on Youtube: Elandsbaii is like a mirror to Scorpion Bay with an amazing long left point break and a small little village. It is just getting developed with about a grouping of 30 homes/cottages built by surfers (and a bunch for rent, which is worth it to post up for 2-3 days). Everywhere we went it was head high to a couple feet overhead each day and surf was good until about 1 or 2 then the S.E winds would pick up and swung a little more south and would blow out the surf. I saw lots of kitersurfers and windsurfers on the main strands north of Cape Town out in the 30+ side offshore and meaty beach break waves. All port tack sailing that I suck at so I didn't even try to find a board to rent.