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

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

The Blue Bird Garage Market in Muizenberg

Known for her pas­sion, drive and abil­ity to open a beau­ti­ful boutique overnight, Kim Speer, the owner of Mythology in Kalk Bay and Constantia, and her hus­band, Dylan, saw a gap in the mar­ket in Muizenberg and took the cour­ageous step in open­ing a night mar­ket. The Blue Bird Garage Market, loc­ated at 39 Albertyn Road, has been a suc­cess since first open­ing and is sup­por­ted by Muizenberg loc­als through to inner city dwell­ers, par­ents, young­sters and lov­ers of fine food ... Continued

Empire Café in Muizenberg a community favourite

Empire Cafe

Tucked in a hid­den lane above the rail­way line, Empire Café occu­pies a double volume space in an ori­ginal vin­tage build­ing in York Road, Muizenberg. After eight years, Empire still reigns supreme as Muizenberg’s favour­ite break­fast and lunch spot. Locals breeze in through­out the day for their fix of Tribe organic cof­fee, legendary break­fasts and catch-up chats with friends. Bikini and board-short clad surfers make their way to Empire for much needed susten­ance between catch­ing waves, greeted by owner and surfer, Dave Jones, as they shuffle in. With the addi­tion of free wifi Continued

Closer — purely vegan food, in Muizenberg

Closer, Muizenberg

'So what does Closer stand for?', I ask Michelle as she hands us the menu. We're sit­ting at a cosy table and chairs in the new (ish) café and eat­ery where items like Fairtrade cof­fee, trendy raw chocol­ate (if you haven't man­aged to sample any, you don't know what you're miss­ing!) and smooth­ies made with soy milk top the menu. And not a meat item in sight. The name has been chosen for its links to food – the closer to the source, to local, closer to the heart and stom­ach, closer to people... one could go on and read into it what one may, but the essence of the pretty café is that it is about serving up deli­cious, home-made, made now veget­arian food that nour­ishes and is sourced loc­ally as much as pos­sible ... Continued

Muizenberg Village

Muizenberg Village

Defined by its quaint ori­ginal Victorian semi’s and tucked below the rail­way line, Muizenberg Village is such a well kept secret, that many Muizenberg res­id­ents don’t even know that it exists. The vil­lage is very com­munity ori­ent­ated and pop­u­lated with artists, writers and cre­at­ive types lend­ing an arty atmo­sphere to the area. Some homes have been turned into gal­lery and cre­at­ive stu­dio spaces, adding fur­ther to the cre­at­ive atmo­sphere. Continued

Casa Labia in Muizenberg

Casa Labia

The very beau­ti­ful Casa Labia stands over­look­ing False Bay on Muizenberg Main Road.  The former res­id­ence of Count and Countess Natale Labia, the res­id­ence was built in 1929 to reflect the spirit and beauty of 18^th cen­tury Venice. Now a national monu­ment, the build­ing was reopened to the pub­lic in May 2010 fol­low­ing a two year res­tor­a­tion by the fam­ily.  It’s now known as South Africa’s most exquis­ite multi-functional cul­tural centre and is avail­able for hire as an up-market venue, Casa Labia is home to an art gal­lery, a boutique and a gor­geous Italian café ... Continued

New in Cape Town — Land sailing in a blokart

Blokart sail­ing

The latest in fun, fast and extreme sport has just arrived from New Zealand in to South Africa — Blokart has now developed into a cul­ture with an inter­na­tional com­munity of like minded enthu­si­asts who travel the globe with their kart chas­ing the wind and camaraderie.

Blokart sail­ing com­prises of a light and com­pact three wheeled buggy and a sail of any­thing from 2 m to 5.5m in length.  Absolutely any­one can fit into the com­fort­able sling seat, with your legs stretched out in front of you, take hold of the steer­ing bar and sheet rope and set off along the beach, through the grass park or around a ten­nis court or car park, at night!  Unlike kite board­ing or wind surf­ing after 5 minutes of brief­ing on con­trols and safety you can be on your way.  All you require is some wind and the will for thrill. Continued

Cape Town International Kite Festival on this weekend

CT Kite Festival

Windy and per­haps a bit over­cast weather is fore­cast for Cape Town this week­end but wind is exactly what is needed for the Cape Town International Kite Festival which is tak­ing place on October 23^rd and 24^th at Zandvlei.

Hosted by Cape Mental Health and in asso­ci­ation with Heart 14.9FM, the theme for the 16^th Cape Town International Kite Festival is ‘Uplifting Mind and Body’. As Africa’s biggest kite fest­ival, crowds of up to 20 000 are expec­ted, includ­ing some of the biggest names in world kit­ing who fly in to our shores to show off their kite cre­ations. Kite-making, kite-flying, food stalls, kid­dies rides, a craft mar­ket and a huge enter­tain­ment pro­gramme make Muizenberg the place to be this week­end ... 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

Muizenberg Photographs

Photographs taken on a Sunday morn­ing in Muizenberg. Intrinsically linked to the surf­ing cul­ture, Muizenberg’s waves are dot­ted with surfers of all ages on any given day, wait­ing for their moment to exper­i­ence the feel­ing. Muizenberg is an eclectic beach-side sub­urb on the False Bay Coast in Cape Town, with a col­our­ful mix of his­tory, archi­tec­ture and fant­astic beaches ... Continued

Majestic Muizenberg

Muizenberg

With the faded opu­lence of its grand old manor houses lin­ing the seafront, its retro children’s play­grounds and vin­tage soft drink advert­ise­ments that have been bleached by the sun, Muizenberg wears its past on its sleeve and seems akin to stum­bling upon a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party!

One can eas­ily ima­gine the sight of sun wor­ship­pers flock­ing to the beach in the past, tum­bling out of their Beetles and Morris Minors enthu­si­ast­ic­ally, filled to the brim with giggles and soda bubbles, look­ing for­ward to fam­ily time spent together bathing on the beach. But the shadow cast by the devel­op­ing city that caused an exodus of investors, home-makers and tour­ists, caus­ing years of erosion in the sea­side town, is slowly being illu­min­ated by an influx of renewed pas­sion for the area. The curi­ous thing about this town is that noth­ing is as it seems. Looking from the beach­front, you’ll be able to spot ‘The Majestic Café,' the old phar­macy and other die hards with their faded sig­nage and aged facades. But if you had to set off on foot, you might just fall into a rab­bit hole! Continued