The Table is set

I didn’t think there would be any similarities between London and Cape Town but, even having been here only 48 hours, there is one that’s obvious.
Sometimes you can get 4 seasons in one day.
A gloomy spring morning….

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…..can produce beautiful blue skies by afternoon and then cloud that comes out of nowhere. It seems to sneak up on the back of Table Mountain, and grab it by the shoulder like a policeman feeling Dell-Boy’s collar.

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One of the best ways to get to know any city is to buy a ticket for the ‘Hop-on, Hop-off’ tour bus. The tour round Cape Town and the surrounding coastal districts is great, a bargain, and something everyone should do.
Twice today we got on it and headed for the cable-car station to get to the top of Table Mountain.
Twice ‘The Table’ was set and ready for us.
Twice, before we got there, ‘The Tablecloth‘ (what they call the beautiful cloud cover that builds up from the eastern elevation) beat us to it, engulfed the cable-car & top of the mountain within 20 minutes and meant that we couldn’t get up there.

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So we contented ourselves with walking around the historic Victoria & Alfred waterfront – not that that was any hardship. Fascinating buildings…..

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…..beautiful yachts (the Round The World Clipper Race is in town)……

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…… and excellent bars & restaurants.
Cape Town, a great town.
But, we’re only here for another day or so (hopefully). The container ship got to port yesterday and we have an appointment the day after tomorrow with South African Customs in order to get the car released.
In the meantime rain is forecast for the next couple of days.
My mum always said ‘…keep your feet off the table…’. It looks unlikely that we’ll get to stand on it until we return from Namibia around mid December.


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