Finally at Cape Agulhas Backpackers – yay!
The flight itself was, well, a flight. The usual crammed like cattle into tin boxes. Mooooo. The main meal they served wasn't too bad though. It was a cottage pie, served with salad and bread and butter, with some kind of chocolate mousse cake thing for dessert.
The breakfast was kind of bleh though. Microwaved scrambled egg with some kind of bacon and sausage, with tomato and mushrooms. At least they had some yogurt with the whole thing, and that was OK. The coffee was very weak. Financial crisis, you know...
When we got to immigration and passport control, we were met by a really friendly, smiling man who was joking with us about going wine tasting. Why can't every country have immigration control officers like this one? *sigh* :-) The immigration control area itself has changed quite a bit since the last time we were there (in 2006) – it was a lot nicer now, and they seemed relatively efficient. And no more filling out of those stupid immigration forms!
After we were done with all that, we got the details about our car and then went to News Cafe for some breakfast. We both ordered these “health” pancakes; on the menu they said they were müsli pancakes with yogurt and fruit. What it ended up being was rolled up crepes filled with yogurt and müsli, with fruit and some more yogurt on the side, but hey... it was good. And filling. Ms. Penguin had a regular filter coffee with milk to go with her breakfast and Mr. Penguin ordered a cafe latte – it was served as a glass of hot milk with a shot of espresso on the side.
Getting the car was a bit of a feat. Because of all the construction going on at CPT, some of the signs were a bit confusing, to say the least. We went in the direction they pointed to for car rentals, but then the signs disappeared, and then reappeared in the domestic arrivals area. So of course we thought everything had been moved there, temporarily or not. No big deal. Until we got there, and were packed into a big BMW (that we, for a moment, thought was the car we were going to get!) and shuffled off back to the international area. Geez. But the guy was cool about it, and admitted there was a lot of confusion due to all the construction. So no BMW for the penguins, but a Nissan Tiida instead. It doesn't have cruise control, and the air conditioning system is a bit primitive, and a slow motor compared to the Mercedes we had last year, but Mr. Penguin feels it's an OK-ish car to drive.
Our first stop was the Stony Point Nature Reserve at Betty's Bay, to see the penguins. Penguins! Development in the area has really picked up since the last time we were there (in 2007). There's now a café – Southern Cross Café – next to the penguin reserve area. Which is nice, because we were missing that kind of thing the last time we were there.
The penguins were as cute (and lustful – hey, it's spring) as ever. They are such funny little birds who behave in such funny ways. There were a lot of “blue” penguins this time – young penguins who don't have that silly fuzz but who don't have adult plumage quite yet either. There weren't as many fuzzy babies as last time, but there was one that we saw that was particularly pathetic. It looked like a bunch of dirty lint, and it was trying to crawl around on its knobs of something that will become wings/flippers some day. We suppose it wanted food from its mother, but mum was more interested in preening than her pesky chick ;-)
Other birds in the bay included cape cormorants, white-chested cormorants, gulls, as well as hadeda ibises, wagtails, thrushes, and other small birds.
The original plan was to eat lunch in Hermanus, but because of the delays with the car, we were running late and decided to drop it. We picked up some biltong at a random Spar, and drove on to Raka Wines for a tasting. Now this is a winery we are very familiar with; we've been enjoying their wonderful wines since 2006. We had also visited in 2006 (after our trip to Cape Agulhas that year) and knew we wanted to go back. We tried five different wines, starting with a white blend and then a rosé (both were quite OK), and then onto the amazing reds – Spliced, Quinary, and Biography Shiraz. And we are now the proud owners of bottles of a Biography Shiraz and a Merlot.
It was getting late by then, so we drove right to Cape Agulhas Backpackers. We were met by the lovely Steffi, who showed us to our room (the Bella room) and let us know about how things worked with dinner and breakfast (if we wanted to order), tours, etc. Since we were quite exhausted, we decided to just relax with some drinks from the bar (beer and cider), and we decided to stay here for dinner as well. Which was a good choice for two exhausted penguins, who ended up having to waddle off to their room/nest to take a pre-dinner nap...
So here we are, back at the bar again, waiting for our chicken braai dinner. Life is good...
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