Cape Town

"Rodge" the Dodge, our SUV (below).
In Cape Town we stay at the boutique chic The La Splendida Hotel situated on the Mouille Point promenade, overlooking the Atlantic ocean to the front and with mountain views to the back. It has a very popular bar and restaurant downstairs and is just a few minutes walk to the V&A Waterfront.
We take the hop on hop off bus for a city tour which also takes us to the cable car station at the base of Table Mountain where we take a gondolier to the top where we have breathtaking views over Cape Town and the bays and beaches along its coast.

On our second day we take the M6, south along the cape past Hout Bay, Noordhoek Bay and across to Fish Hoek Bay, onto the M310 past the huge coastal township of Muizenberg and across Mitchell's Plain to the beautiful wine growing region of Stellenbosch.
We make or way thru gorgeous vineyards and find our way to "Rust en Vrede" Estate where we enjoy a delicious lunch paired with the estates red wines whilst sitting in a beautiful courtyard surrounded by Dutch Cape style buildings. After lunch we take a stroll thru the beautiful university town of Stellenbosch before heading back to Cape Town.

Wednesday morning we rise early for our last walk along the promenade, back to the hotel for brekky, pack our bags and hit the road north on the N7 for the 560km drive to the northern town of Springbok, which is our overnight stop before crossing the border into Namibia.

The N7 is good stretch of bitumen that takes us past many townships, farmlands and citrus orchards. The scenery changes constantly with flat plains and distant mountains, we make our way into the area known as Namaqualand and the scenery changes into barren scrubby land.
"Rodge" the Dodge makes good time and we arrive in Springbok safely for our rest stop. Springbok takes me by surprise at it has a very Dutch feel about it due to the fact a lot of the town signage is in Dutch and the locals speak Dutch, evidence of a past Dutch colony.