The weather off the coast was still sketchy, so we were unable to do the shark excursion again today. Instead, we took a scenic drive with our guide up the mountains and over to False Bay. There we visited what is called a Scratch Patch - it is a place to gather rocks and semi-precious stones. Africa is of course known for its gold and diamond mining and they have lots of other gems stones and types of rocks as well. The kids had a ball going through all the rocks and picking out ones they liked. Brannon (the 4th kid) had the biggest bag, of course.
We ate lunch by the marina in Simon's Town and then headed back over the mountains to the cable car going up to the top of Table Rock. This was James' favorite part of the day since he got to climb over rocks and act like a goat. We got stuck for a bit at the top when the power grid the cable car is on went down and we had to wait not he generators to kick in - the city has a rolling blackout throughout the day since the country does not have enough power to keep everything running all the time. Each grid in the city goes down for two hours a day. As you can imagine, it is hard to attract businesses to your country when you cannot provide uninterrupted power during the day.
We got back to our apartment just after 5pm and our rental car for the next leg of our trip was delivered shortly thereafter. We had dinner on the Victoria & Albert Wharf again (this time at a Portuguese/Turkish restaurant) and the kids played on the playground there with Brannon while I went to the grocery store that is there under the Victoria & Albert mall. So far we have eaten a lot of fish (mostly fried), Italian food, burgers and a few African dishes such as lamb curry, springbok, and kudu steak. For the most part, the food has been very good.
For those of you wondering just how many stuffed animals we are going to come home with, I have been able to hold the girls to just two purchases each so far - Madeleine has a stuffed unicorn from London and she purchased a jackal today (we saw jackals at the Cheetah Outreach yesterday). Charlotte has a princess and a lion from London and I am sure she will find some African animal she cannot live without shortly. James purchased a blue stone pyramid from the gift shop at the Scratch Patch today - he has been really good about not wanting to buy everything in sight. :-)
searching for the most interesting stones they could find
a view of the marina from our table at lunch
they were really wishing they could put their feet in the water
Simon's Town
on the way to the cable car up to Table Mountain
going up to the top
A few of the sights from the top:
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