I ♥ Glencairn Because ...

I ♥ Glencairn

Hi, I’m Gillian O’Leary from Moonglow Guest House in Glencairn, False Bay.

Glencairn IS BEST KNOWN FOR for the stun­ning views over False Bay which stretched from Hangklip, close to Pringle Bay, through to Cape Point on the peninsula.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT Cape Point at the light house with its stun­ning views over the sea.

THE BEST whale PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN en route to Cape Point.

OTHER HAPPY SNAPS AT Penguin Colony at Boulders — this is home to the 'Jackass' African pen­guin which occurs in only 27 sites. Continued

Muizenberg Beach — Photographs

After a late night and a dis­ap­point­ing Stormers match I woke up early-ish on Sunday morn­ing and headed off with a good friend to watch some other friends who had begun learn­ing how to surf with Roxy Surf  School. We arrived on Muizenberg Beach just after 09h30 and after find­ing a spot where the sun would warm our backs we scoured the waves to see if we could spot our mates.

The waves weren't really up to any­thing excit­ing on this morn­ing and I can't say I envied my friends in the cold water, how­ever after a good hour and a half in the water they were ready for a hot shower. Once they had warmed up we all sat down and shared a deli­cious break­fast and divine hot chocol­ate at Knead on the beach­front. This beach­front is bust­ling with people and it is a great way to spend a relax­ing few hours, if you're up for it dur­ing winter end it off as I did with an ice cream from Sinnfull ... Continued

I ♥ Simons Town Because ...

I ♥ Simons Town

Hi, I’m Debbie Smuts from The Grosvenor Guest House in Simons Town on the False Bay Coast.

Simons Town IS BEST KNOWN FOR for its pen­guins at Boulders Beach, great white shark diving, whale watch­ing, hik­ing in the Cape Point National Park, boat trips, kayak­ing, steam train trips from Cape Town to Simons Town, the work­ing Naval base and of course ‘Just Nuisance’.

GET YOUR PICTURE TAKEN AT Boulders Penguin Beach or next to ‘Just Nuisance’s’ statue on Jubilee Square.

THE BEST land­scape PICTURES CAN BE TAKEN AT the site of ‘Just Nuisance’s’ grave.
OTHER HAPPY SNAPS AT the yacht basin with the navy ships in the back­ground from Jubilee Square. Continued

The Blue Bird Garage Market — Photographs

The Blue Bird Garage Market in Muizenberg has grown in pop­ular­ity since it opened its doors in late 2010.  Open every Friday from 4pm to 10pm, Blue Bird Garage is the per­fect meet­ing place for friends and fam­ily at the end of the week …and if you arrive any later than 7pm and you battle to find a seat at one of the many trestle tables set up for visitors.

The mar­ket has a bar offer­ing wine or beer and a vari­ety of food stalls selling piz­zas, cur­ries, potjiekos, kebabs, bur­gers and pies.  Other vendors sell freshly baked bread, fresh veget­ables, cof­fee, sam­oo­sas and nou­gat.  There are also a few cloth­ing stalls as well as books and jew­ellery.  A sec­tion is cor­doned off to keep chil­dren enter­tained and there is an out­side sec­tion for those who need a smoke break!  Live music will get your foot tap­ping as you relax into the week­end. Continued

Splendid Simons Town — Photographs

Located on the False Bay coast­line of Cape Town, Simons Town is a his­tor­ical little vil­lage, steeped in South African naval his­tory and home to the South African Navy.  St George’s Street (also known as Simons Town’s his­tor­ical mile) has build­ings over 150 years old; among these are museums and the Church of St Francis which is believed to be the old­est Anglican Church in South Africa.

Apart from museums and his­tor­ical build­ings, Simons Town boasts won­der­ful shops, antique stores and res­taur­ants.  There is so much to do; whether it’s sit­ting at the pier enjoy­ing fresh fish and chips, book­ing a sea kayak trip, wan­der­ing the his­tor­ical mile and learn­ing about the world fam­ous dog, Just Nuisance or explor­ing the cobbled streets off the main road, you will not be bored in Simons Town. Continued

Water's Edge beach — we reveal another 'secret' Cape Town cove

Water's Edge Beach

The aver­age per­son doesn't even know the beach exists, unless you are pre­pared to explore, or someone you know hap­pens to nudge you in the right dir­ec­tion. And the bonus about this beach is that, not only is there shade under trees on a wall along­side the sea, but this same ledge is well out of the wind, should there be that dast­ardly south-easter blow­ing as it was on Saturday.

For little boys' parties, Water's Edge is just the best. The rock pools here remain largely untouched. The same goes for the beach, which lies in a little bay, out of the main body of the sea. There are few waves, the water is (slightly) warmer, and the beach dot­ted with rocks and boulders between which are sand­wiched count­less salt water pools inhab­ited by bright orange star­fish, sal­mon anemones, moluscs and other excit­ing sea creatures that I thought had all but aban­doned our busy coast­line in search of pas­tures green (or at least those untouched by human beings). Continued

Simons Town's historical mile – seeing the seaside town through new eyes

Simons Town mile

The essence of Simon's Town has been here since 1741. That's a long time, I think to myself, as, with hat firmly clipped to my head with one of these huge slide things because of the south east­erly that is ham­mer­ing through here, I leave my car beneath a tree in a side road close to the sta­tion, and set off to see the vil­lage through the eyes of a vis­itor. I could have caught the train, it is true, but because the rail­way line looks as though it is has been used as a place to dump build­ing sand, there is only a bus ser­vice between Fish Hoek and Simon's Town. Pity, as for vis­it­ors it is a great way to come into the naval har­bour to explore. The tour­ist inform­a­tion office assures me that they have finally begun work on the line. Considering it's been at least a couple of months that the pop­u­lar train line has been without its final des­tin­a­tion, one won­ders... Continued

Kalk Bay Photographs

The unpre­ten­tious bohemian fish­ing vil­lage of Kalk Bay lies between the moun­tains and the sea, just 25 minutes’ from Cape Town. Home to one of the last remain­ing work­ing har­bours in South Africa, not only can you meet the return­ing boats for the catch of the day at noon, but the little cobbled streets, shops and res­taur­ants make this an easy place to while away the time and for­get the fast pace of city liv­ing. Antique stores, second-hand book shops, art gal­ler­ies and a thriv­ing theatre have given rise to a real sense of com­munity in Kalk Bay ... Continued

Cést La Vie in Kalk Bay

C’est la Vie (Kalk Bay)

I went to Provence for a crois­sant and cafe au lait on Sunday morn­ing.  You dont believe me non?  OK I didn’t, but with the cobbled street and bor­ders of lav­ender out­side Cést La Vie in Kalk Bay you would be excused for think­ing you were in the South of France. I read about Cést La Vie in a magazine and thought this was some­where I just had to try.  So, when my hus­band got back from his LSD Sunday run (Long Slow Distance for those of you who are not in the run­ning mix!) we hopped in the car and headed to Kalk Bay ... Continued

Smitswinkelbaai — far from the madding crowds

Smitswinkelbaai

Both the res­id­ents of Smitswinkelbaai (Smitswinkel Bay) and I are thank­ing our respect­ive stars for the derth of devel­op­ment that means there is still no tarred road to bring all and sun­dry in their cars down to the beach at Smitswinkelbaai (which for some unknown reason, I kept call­ing Witsminkelbaai for most of the day until my other half and son finally dug me in the ribs in des­per­a­tion and declared loudly that 'for good­ness sake, couldn't I say it properly?').

Pronunciation aside, the gor­geously secluded beach, way out of the way, has to be the most beau­ti­ful 'find' I've made in the last six months. It isn't as if we don't drive past here fairly reg­u­larly, but there are sev­eral things that keep Smitswinkelbaai from becom­ing an over­crowded haunt rather than the deser­ted little enclave it is ... Continued

Dinner at the Outspan in Kalk Bay

The Outspan

We had fam­ily stay with us over the Festive Season and with an empty fridge on our return from a week in Citrusdal the only solu­tion was to drive the short dis­tance along Main Road to Kalk Bay, park and stroll along decid­ing where to have din­ner.  We tried for a table at Live Bait but with that fully booked and rum­bling tum­mies telling us that wait­ing for a table would not be a good option we decided to try The Outspan which is on the corner of Main Road and the begin­ning of Boyes Drive (next door to the Olympia Cafe) ... Continued

The Great Whites of False Bay, South Africa by Dirk Schmidt – a Book Review

This ground­break­ing book is a world first, depict­ing the Great White Sharks which dom­in­ate the False Bay area and present a unique hunt­ing beha­viour of breach­ing dur­ing pred­at­ory events – and is the only book of its kind in print. It is soon to be a South African bestseller!

About the book

The book con­tains spell-binding pho­to­graphy of the Great Whites breach­ing and hunt­ing seals within the False Bay area, as well as delving briefly into the life cycle of the Cape Fur Seal, Seal Island’s his­tory and False Bay, without diver­ging too much from the awe­some­ness of the White Shark hunt­ing these waters ... Continued

Harbour House Restaurant in Kalk Bay — a review

Dessert @ Harbour House

It was my birth­day on Monday and although my hus­band offered to make fran­colin curry for din­ner I got my way and off to Harbour House we went!  We’ve often been to Polana but have not eaten in the ‘smarter’ part upstairs and oh it’s so pretty!  The floor to ceil­ing pic­ture win­dows give the most beau­ti­ful views of Kalk Bay’s work­ing har­bour, the Hottentots Mountains and False Bay.  There was a bit of a zephyr blow­ing on Monday night which made for a very stormy sea – the huge win­dows are ideal for star­ing down at the waves crash­ing onto the rocks below.

For a Monday night the res­taur­ant was packed.  The atmo­sphere is relaxed and com­fort­able with some diners even arriv­ing in shorts as if they’d just hopped off the Cape Town sight see­ing bus!  I appre­ci­ated too that the tables were fairly large; I hate get­ting squashed at a tiny two seater ... Continued

Baden Powell Drive – flowers, tributes, beaches and whales

Baden Powell Drive

Friends of ours arrive breath­less about the flowers' beauty at our house on Saturday. They have just driven Baden Powell en route from Somerset West and are inspired. Very little per­sua­sion is neces­sary to get us out on the road, which we do the very next morn­ing. The flowers are a feast for sore eyes. I haven't seen the road­side quite this pretty before. There are car­pets of white dais­ies, inter­spersed with pelar­gonium flowers, oxalis, yel­low dais­ies, the bright­est pink vygies I think I've ever seen, star flowers and a myriad other that include what looked like a black orchid, but which can't be, can it (my know­ledge of flowers bor­ders on illiterate)?

I think Baden Powell Drive, in Cape Town, gets rather a raw deal. When you ask loc­als about scenic drives, they ooh and aah about Chapman's Peak and Clarens Drive, but very few people men­tion Baden Powell Drive — the R310 that links Muizenberg with the N2 and runs along the coast­line — a feast of sea, beach, moun­tain and, at this time of year if you're lucky, wild flowers. Most people regard it as little more than an altern­at­ive route to Stellenbosch ... Continued

Knead in Muizenberg

Knead Bakery

I had read about a gor­geous place for break­fast and cof­fee in Muizenberg so we set aside an hour or two on Saturday morn­ing only to find it only opened at 10am and with it being 9.10am we were forced to aban­don that place and opted instead for Knead.  What a bonus that was!  I knew Knead made good breads and I was aware of the fact that one could get a pizza there but I was not aware of just how lovely it was!

The Knead in Muizenberg is slap bang next door to the Empire Building and looks out over the beach.  Continued