28th August. Cape Town

28^th August. Cape Town.

It was to be a day of finishing off the shopping, but during the night the wind increased and the rain became incessant. Just like the forecasters’ said it would. What better type of weather to visit the Cape of Good Hope National Park. A place where countless ships have faltered because of such weather. Some of the wrecks are still on the beach though many have gone to a watery grave.

The wind was gale force. We took the funicular from the car park to the top lighthouse where we had trouble standing upright. At least the sun shone intermittently. This lighthouse is some 240 odd metres above the ocean, when built in the 1800s it seemed to be the logical place to build it. What they forgot was the regular low cloud that hangs around this range and when that happens the beam from the lighthouse wouldn’t travel 100 metres. It needed a major catastrophe for the powers that be to realize their mistake and the sinking of the Lusitania in the early 1900s was the catalyst. There is now a second lighthouse a lot lower down the cliff face.

The lighthouse is actually built on Cape Point which is further south by a 100 metres or so than the Cape of Good hope but the second cape is the most famou of course. Originally called the Cape of Storms by Bartholomew Dias in 1487 after almost being wrecked when he came back around it, His sponsor, King John of Portugal decided a more suitable name would be the Cape of Good Hope.

On the drive out to the Cape Joan got me to pull up in a hurry, she had spotted a Southern Right Whale and its calf swimming close to shore in False Bay the bay to the east of the peninsula. We spent 20 minutes watching this massive creature appear to just potter around in a small area. A local walking by acted very hum harrish as though such a site was an every day occurrence.