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