Cape of Good Hope

On our last morning in Cape Town we had planned to hire a driver to take us to the Cape of Good Hope and then onwards to our final stop in South Africa’s Napa Valley. The driver took us along the famous Chapman’s Peak drive south of Cape Town.

This drive has been named as one of the most beautiful in the world and it sure did deliver.

The drive is about 20km and follows a very narrow path chipped into the side of the mountains than plunge into the Atlantic. It’s very reminiscent of the Pacific Coast Highway in California.

The best known story of the Cape of Good Hope is one about a Dutch ship captained by man named Van der Decken. In 1641 he failed to notice the dark clouds looming off the Cape of Good Hope and only when he heard the lookout scream out in terror, did he realize that they had sailed straight into a fierce storm.

“Legend has it that the ghost ship can never make it to port and is doomed to sail the oceans forever”

The captain and his crew battled for hours to get out of the storm and at one stage it looked like they would make it. Then they heard a sickening crunch – the ship had hit treacherous rocks and began to sink. As the ship plunged downwards, Captain VandeDecken knew that death was approaching. He was not ready to die and screamed out a curse: “I will round this Cape even if I have to keep sailing until doomsday!”.

Legend has it that the ghost ship can never make it to port and is doomed to sail the oceans forever. Sightings in the 19th and 20th centuries reported the ship to be glowing with ghostly light, and if hailed by another ship, the crew of the ship will try to send messages to land, or to people long dead. In ocean lore, the sight of this phantom ship is a portent of doom.

The name of the ship was “The Flying Dutchman” and this legend continues to live on today. Through the ages there have been several sightings of The Flying Dutchman, although these are generally attributed to a fata morgana, or mirage (although more complicated than that).

A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa. This misconception was based on the misbelief that the Cape was the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. When following the western side of the African coastline from the equator, however, the Cape of Good Hope marks the point where a ship begins to travel more eastward than southward. Ships have been doing this since 1488 when Portugese explorer Bartolomeu Dias sailed from Lisbon to India. Cape Town was settled in 1652 as a resupply point for ships making this journey. There’s a lot of interesting history around the Cape of Good Hope if you ever get the chance to read about it.

We didn’t espy The Flying Dutchman, via fata morgana or otherwise, but we did ride The Flying Dutchman – the name of the funicular – to the top of the point.

We picked an excellent weather day to visit the Cape and got some great photos.

Including one of these ostriches (we saw many) that makes their home on the Cape.

When we finished our visit to the Cape of Good Hope, we turned north along the coast of False Bay as we made our way to the winelands.

A about half way up the coast you come to a place called Boulder’s Beach, which is famous for it’s chinstrap penguin colony. In 1982 a breeding pair were brought to this beach and since then they have grown into a colony of 3,000 penguins.

They were super cute. After lunch in the area we continued our drive to Franschhoek, the town at the epicenter of the South African winelands.