We joined some friends for a picnic lunch at Hartenberg wine farm this afternoon. Hartenberg serves a picnic lunch each day, spoiling guests with a plate full of cheeses, snoek pate, bread, salad, fruit and so on.

Unfortunately today we were plagued by bees. Hundreds of these tiny warriors joined us for lunch on the lawn and buzzed around menacingly in an attempt to get at the food and the bottle of grape juice on our table. We eventually abandoned our meal and retired to the wine-tasting room after baby Jett was stung on his baby thumb. :(

It seems as though the estate has had trouble with these bees for a while now, and management seem to be at their wits' end, not knowing what to do about the situation. It is still worth visiting the farm for a meal; but if you do, ask the manager about the bees, and if they're still a problem request to be seated at the upper section of the premises, away from the bees' hungry eyes. :)

Click through to our CTDP Extras blog for a few more photos of the bee infestation.

I have no idea what this pretty, fluffy little flower is, but if it weren't illegal to pick wild flowers, I'd certainly have gathered a few of these for my vase today.

The Cape Floral Kingdom is a Unesco World Heritage Site, and apparently has more plant species than the whole of Europe! According to Unesco, this area contains nearly 20% of Africa's flora, even though it covers less than 0.5% of the surface area of the continent.

The Tyger Waterfront (across the road from Tyger Valley Centre in Bellville) doesn't have the vibe of the V&A Waterfront in the city - partly, I suppose, because of the fact that it's situated on a man-made lake rather than a working harbour, and partly because the night-life in the northern suburbs is not as bustling and concentrated as the night-life in the city centre and southern suburbs.

But what the Tyger Waterfront does have is a sense of quietness and tranquility - which we sorely needed after the rush of the festive season. We ate our dinner at the Cattle Baron Grill House, looking out across the perfectly still lake and watching the lights play gently on the water.

We joined a friend at Col'Cacchio (a local pizza/pasta restaurant) for lunch to celebrate her birthday today. This was the view from our table.

The sunny weather of yesterday turned grey and cloudy this morning, bringing with it quite a downpour. It wasn't cold at all though and the hard rain was absolutely beautiful.

The rain also brought some relief to our garden, which has been suffering with the warm and windy weather we've had in December. From January I doubt that we'll see much rain for a few months though, so I've started installing an irrigation system in my garden.

Like many people, you might be unsure of the law, but it's true - unless they are in specially designated areas all dogs must be kept on leashes when being taken for walks in public areas.

While we watched people playing on the beach and freezing in the sea I noticed several dogs running unleashed on the beach. On the one hand I feel sorry for the dogs who really need to run free, but on the other hand I realise that some dogs are simply not social and friendly, and unfortunately it can't be left up to their owners to decide.

According to Wikipedia jungle gyms (also known as climbing frames or monkey bars) are not very common anymore (presumably in the USA), as children were found to be injuring themselves by hitting their heads on the bars.

I guess we must have a more robust version of child here in Africa, because jungle gyms are still pretty ubiquitous in our parks. In fact, I think it's safe to say that almost every suburban playpark features a jungle gym among its attractions.

This particular jungle gym offers a pretty unusual view though, don't you think?

Anyone who's lived in Cape Town for a number of years will instantly recognise Bokkie. Bokkie was the poster-child (or poster-animal, if you prefer) for an anti-bushfire campaign that originated in the 70s or 80s. I remember the posters being around when I was a little girl, which would have been in the early 80s.

These posters appeared on signboards in the vicinity of Table Mountain and around the South Peninsula. They featured Bokkie, with a single big tear rolling down his cheek, and the words 'Look what you've done! Bokkie says "Only you can prevent forest fires."' I was a terribly sensitive young thing, so seeing one of these posters always made me very sad...

I know of only one that still exists, somewhere near Scarborough if I remember correctly - or at least, it did last time we drove through there. If you know of any others, let us know by leaving a comment.

I spotted this miniature stylised version of Bokkie at the Montebello Design Centre, and bought it to hang on our Christmas tree.

It would appear as though Santa Claus is stuck in Cape Town. He seems to have been hanging about at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront's shopping centre for quite some time and I've seen no signs of reindeer, let alone a sleigh, anywhere! Will the gifts be delivered on time? I'm not so sure - nobody's that fast. :)

Shopping centres seemed to be fairly quiet on Sunday, becoming busier on Monday and Tuesday. Kerry-Anne ventured to a local shopping mall this afternoon. Apparently it seems as though the afternoon of Christmas Eve is the best time to shop for bargains. Toys and anything Christmas-related was reportedly marked down up to 50%. Let's see if I'm able to remember this mental note to leave Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve next year. :D

Kerry-Anne took a photo of this unusual basin at Royale Eatery, a popular hamburger restaurant in Long Street. Unlike the title of this post may lead you to believe, we really do have proper basins in South Africa, really, we do. :)

On a side note, perhaps it's worth mentioning that even though I really enjoy Royale, I think it's best visited for lunch and not dinner. We found the upstairs section too noisy and cramped to allow for dinner conversation. During the day the downstairs section is beautiful, light and airy. The waitresses are friendly, efficient, and... well... pretty. :)

If you're not familiar with the area, this photo of a house in Sea Point could fool you into believing that Sea Point is a small, antiquated fishing village. Not so, of course. Sea Point is actually a sprawling coastal suburb filled with tall blocks of flats, a number of hotels and guesthouses, and plenty of busy restaurants.

In fact, Wikipedia indicates that Sea Point is the most densely populated suburb in Cape Town - and I can well believe that.

I wonder who first thought of building showers at the beach. Seriously, it must have been a guy - in more than just the practical way, it was truly a brilliant idea. :D

These particular fresh-water showers are found at Camps Bay beach, overlooking the white sands and just over the road from the restaurants that line Victoria Road. While I have no problem using the showers, their location causes me to feel slightly exposed every now and again.

Many other beaches have showers in slightly more secluded locations, but not here at Camps Bay. Given the option though, I'd elect to keep them where they are. It's not often that one has the opportunity to shower with a view like this.

While typing this post I remembered a scene from the movie Drillbit Taylor in which the hobo-like Owen Wilson uses showers almost like these for his morning cleansing routine. The only difference was that he didn't feel that his bathing costume needed to be washed.

We took a drive through to Hout Bay this afternoon to visit with friends and enjoy a braai, much like the one I posted about here a few days ago. Isn't the view of the mountains just spectacular? Perhaps a panoramic photo would do this vista more justice. But for the bay, Hout Bay is surrounded by mountains, creating what may be perceived as a town purposefully secluded from greater Cape Town.

You're just able to see the Table Mountain range stretching out in the distance with the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens directly behind it. This area has many hiking trails up mountains and peaks, ranging from 1-hour strolls to whole-day trips. Some time in the near future we'll have to see if we can climb up the peak known as Little Lion's Head - a smaller version of Cape Town's well-known Lion's Head.

After two weeks of having guests in our home we're all alone again. The house seems strangely quiet. Nobody splashes us with cold pool water or tries to wrestle our lilos from under us. There's nobody to drink beer with and nobody to punch, pinch or scratch me - affectionately, of course :). There's nobody for us to show around the sights of Cape Town or to lie on Clifton beach with. There's no-one for us to hike up warm mountain rivers with and nobody to get sunburned with. There's nobody around to join us in these and all the other fun things that we've done in the last two weeks.

Truth be told, I guess I'm exaggerating a little. While we don't have visitors in our home anymore we know plenty of people who are really keen to get out and do stuff. I guess this is a pre-Christmas resolution then to tear ourselves away from our work, get out there and enjoy our city, the surrounding sea and the mountains in the new year.

Let's see if we can make it happen. Watch this space. :)

I found these cute little creatures at the Montebello Design Centre, which is located on the old Montebello Estate on the slopes of Table Mountain. The Montebello Design Centre is a non-profit organisation that aims to promote good local design. The centre provides work for a range of craftspeople, from beaders and ceramic workers to carpenters making furniture from alien vegetation.

Follow this link to read more about the design centre's history and what they're doing.

It was hot, it was sunny, and we were looking for a day of fun. Ratanga Junction is Cape Town's own theme park, only 5 minutes from the city centre.

Shortly after arriving I made a mental note never to visit the theme park on a public holiday - ever again! Queues to get into the theme park and to access rides were very long, kinda spoiling the day a little. :-/

We did have fun on the rides, though; especially on the Cobra, a huge, high-speed roller-coaster, and on the traditional log-floating-along-a-canal ride called Monkey Falls. Even though I'd taken my motion-sickness pills (a mandatory requirement for this kind of expedition) there was no way I was going to take a ride on the boat shown in the photo. The second row from the back hosts Kerry-Anne, our two visitors from Sydney, and a friend of ours kindly taking my place.

Positive points:
* Rides were fun
* Staff were friendly and professional
* Plenty of open space

Negative points:
* Queues were long
* Food was expensive
* Best water-ride was non-operational, and there was no warning of this on Ratanga's website

Until 28 February the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway is offering sunset trips up Table Mountain at half price. Instead of paying R145 for an adult return ticket we paid only R72.50. The offer is valid every day from 18h00, giving about 3 hours of awesome views from the top of the mountain, as well as the most spectacular sunset.

If you don't mind paying full price then it would be quicker go up the mountain at about 17h00 as it took us about 45 minutes from joining the queue to climbing into the cable-car.

You are allowed to take your own picnic basket, including alcohol if you choose, up the mountain. It's not completely necessary however - there is a restaurant on top of the mountain. We never bought food, so I can't comment on price or quality - but we did buy hot chocolate at R9 for a mug - which in my opinion is pretty cheap.

Note: No matter how hot it is at ground level, take warm clothing along. The mountain is just over 1000 meters higher than ground level - it get's cold up there as soon as the sun sets.

A braai is always (well, almost always) a great way to fill one's tummy. To make the experience near-perfect, add a swimming pool and a cold beer.

Kerry-Anne bought the most amazingly tender rump steak from Pick 'n Pay - although the packaging was labeled "rump" I swear that it was in fact fillet. Either that or this specific animal must have had daily "rump massages". Well done, Pick 'n Pay, for an excellent cut of meat.

So, yesterday was my nephew's 18th birthday and today is my sister's 30th - it sure is a month for holidays, parties and celebrations. Before meeting up with my sister at Maestro's restaurant on Woodbridge Island for dinner we sat on the island's beach watching kids swimming in the ocean, a group of guys playing touch-rugby on the sand, people paddle-skiing in the waves and even a dog or two having a whale of a time. :)

If you're unfamiliar with Cape Town it may sound awfully posh or perhaps even extravagant to go from Cape Town to an island for dinner. The truth is that while Woodbridge Island is an island off the mainland, it can't be more than 100m from the shore and is connected to the mainland by a small bridge.

The island has at least two restaurants, about 600 inhabitants (mostly living in a clustered residential estate) and a tall lighthouse. Even if you have dinner somewhere else, try and stop by the island to watch the sun set behind Table Mountain.

We celebrated my nephew's 18th birthday today, and by this evening he desperately needed to go out for drinks. We ended up at Tank in the Cape Quarter - a trendy square with a Cape Malay architecture in the trendy suburb of Green Point (the location of our new football stadium).

Tank is a bar and sushi restaurant with blue lights and a huge fish tank giving it an aquarium-like feel... I guess it makes the sushi seem super-fresh too. :)

Rick's Cafe Americain is a small restaurant and bar just off Kloof Nek Road in Cape Town. We posted previously about the decor, origin and location of the restaurant here.

Rick's is right near the top of our list of places to chill. In addition to the tables in the restaurant section, there are big comfy couches both upstairs and downstairs, so you can put your feet up and relax for the evening while still being sociable.

In July we posted a photo of Beleza, a restaurant on Kloof Nek Road in Cape Town, where breakfast then cost a mere R10. It would seem as though inflation has caught up with Beleza - the price for the R10 breakfast has been increased to R12! :)

Of the four of us who went through to Beleza for breakfast, I was the only one to actually have the R12 breakfast. (For report-back purposes I resisted the urge to super-size my morning-meal.) My compatriots had variants that cost between R18 and R25, which is still very cheap for breakfast.

All in all, our breakfast at Beleza was definitely worth the trip. The food was delicious, the service was friendly and the location - just great. (Oh, and they have free wi-fi too, by the way.)

For a long time we've intended to take a boat trip out to Seal Island at Hout Bay. Perhaps a more appropriate name for Seal Island would be Seal Rocks. For the princely sum of 32ZAR (about 3 Euro) Kerry-Anne, Leandre, Adam and I caught one of the boats from Hout Bay's harbour out to the "island".

It took about 15 minutes to reach the seals, and then we spent about 10 minutes bobbing around really close to the seal colony. The 45-minute round-trip was cheaper than the ones available at the V&A Waterfront - although the trips from the Waterfront are, in my opinion, prettier and offer far more to see than trips from Hout Bay.

If you are intending to do this trip, or any boat trip for that matter, my suggestion is to try and do it as early in the morning as you can, and on as windless a day as possible... unless you love funfair rides. :)

We've wanted to do Cape Town's open-top bus tour for months, perhaps even years. The arrival of our niece and nephew from Sydney was apparently the motivation that we needed. We caught the bus at the V&A Waterfront (just outside of the aquarium) and went as far as the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens on the first leg of our tour.

There we paid the R32 (per person) entrance fee, found a grassy spot (as if perfectly manicured lawn was difficult to find :)) and hauled out our picnic lunch. I'll write about the gardens some other time, but just to put you in the picture, we watched ducklings waddle across the lawn, turtles duck into ponds (and come rushing back after us when we left), and baby guinea fowl trying desperately to keep up with their mom.

We caught the next City Sightseeing bus from Kirstenbosch over to Hout Bay and then along the coast past Llandudno, Camps Bay and Sea Point, before heading back to the V&A Waterfront.

In theory you could do the entire trip in two and a half hours - we took slightly longer because of our Kirstenbosch lunch meander through the gardens. All in all the trip was definitely worth the ticket price of R120. The only two cautionaries that I'd like to leave you with are:

1. Use sunscreen if you're going to ride on the top deck
2. Try and choose a day that's not too windy

Nope, I'm not confused - this post is about Butterfly World and no, this isn't a photo of a butterfly. Before today, we'd last visited Butterfly World several years ago. They've expanded somewhat since then: not only do they have many species of butterflies, but now also have reptiles (like iguanas and snakes) as well as birds, monkeys, spiders and even a small Duiker.

If you decide to visit, prepare yourself for a very humid experience. They've tried to make the 1000-square-metre enclosure comfortable for the butterflies by keeping it warm and humid inside. Unfortunately this means that it's slightly uncomfortable for us humans.

All in all it was a fun albeit hot visit, and certainly worth an hour or so of your day if you're en route to the wine farms of Stellenbosch. :)

Tweede Tol is a camping site high up in the Limietberg Nature Reserve. Since we last visited, several years ago, Cape Nature seems to have made several improvements to the site - perhaps the most welcome of all being that they've planted and manicured a thick bed of buffalo grass at each stand.

Day visitors are allowed to picnic and swim at the large rock pools. We wanted to hike up the mountain river to a large pool about 1.5km above the camping site - so we had to hire two camping sites for the day, which worked out more expensive, but was certainly way more fun.

We spent about 4 hours hiking, swimming and applying copious amounts of sunscreen.

We took a drive out to Spier wine estate today for a family picnic and visit to the estate's cheetah enclosure. I mentioned in a previous post that one could enter the cheetah enclosure (along with a guide) and spend a few minutes stroking one of these big cats. This time Kerry-Anne entered the caged-off area with our niece and nephew... and yes, fortunately they came out smiling and unscathed.

If you visit the cheetah enclosure some time, be sure to go along on the guided tour. The guides explain what the cheetah conservation project is about and take visitors on a tour to see not only the cheetahs, but also the dogs, goats, jackals, and caracals.

After visiting the animals we had a picnic next to the dam at Spier. The estate allows visitors to picnic out on the lawn free of charge, but insists that you buy your food at the estate's well-stocked (though overpriced) deli. To be fair to Spier, they don't charge an entrance fee, and I suppose that the deli prices might be on a par with what you would pay at a restaurant.

I've never spent summer in another country, so my possibly-biased opinion is that Cape Town is one of the best places in the world to spend a summer vacation.

Our niece and nephew (16 and 17 respectively) are visiting with us from Sydney for the next two weeks, so we'll be out and about doing the "tourist" thing and showing them the sights. One of the first stops on our agenda was Sinnful in Camps Bay - quite possibly the best ice-cream parlour in Cape Town.

I'm not sure that taking a walk down to Camps Bay beach, ice-cream in hand, was the best idea though. Our lovely smooth ice-creams quickly turned into crunchy delights as gusty wind sprinkled sand all over them, kind of like hundreds-and-thousands. Still tasted good though... :)

The Next 48 Hours is a free paper guide to what's happening in Cape Town over the weekend. The guide lists almost any kind of event, from art exhibitions to night clubs, and craft markets to concerts.

So, the next time that you see the weekend looming and feel like a loser because you don't know what to do, visit one of the places listed here to pick up your copy of The Next 48 Hours. Don't be a couch potato - get out there, have fun and do something.

Don't you just love how the street, traffic and shop lights create an array of colours on the street and pavements in this photo?

We've met several American visitors to our country recently and learned a couple of things about words that we have in common, but which mean different things. In South African English a "pavement" is the place where pedestrians walk and a road is where vehicles drive. In American English a "pavement" is a road and a sidewalk is where pedestrians walk. Then there's that interesting American word "turnpike", which is a "toll road" in South African English.

What are some of your favourite words that have different meanings in American and British (or South African) English?

If you haven't yet seen the Venus, Jupiter and Moon trio and you're not into waiting until 2052 to catch a glimpse of their next rendezvous, then this may be your opportunity to see what we saw in the heavens last night.

Venus (named after the Roman goddess) and Jupiter (after the Roman god of gods) are the second and fifth furthest planets from the sun respectively.

If I'd had 4 hours to take a drive I guess the best place from which to view this would have been the observatory at Sutherland. About 18km outside of the town one finds the location of SALT, the Southern African Large Telescope - the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere. Sutherland is in a cold part of the country, practically in the middle of nowhere, far away from city lights. I've never been sure exactly where Sutherland is, so I took some time to track it down on trusty Wikimapia. Click through to the Wikimapia topographical map to get an idea of where the telescope is, and then zoom in - the guys from Google have made a pretty decent photo available for us.

The red stripes on this unusual round kite reminded me of the fact that it's World AIDS Day today. There are currently 33 million people living with HIV worldwide - and an estimated 5.5 million of those live in South Africa. Our new minister of health, Barbara Hogan, today encouraged men in particular to get tested in order to slow the spread of the disease. You can visit the website of the Treatment Action Campaign to learn more about the disease and find out what is being done to overcome this challenge in South Africa.

There are 187 blogs taking part in today's theme day. See how the theme has been interpreted around the world: click here to view thumbnails for all participants.