If anybody has been reading my blog for a while you will probably know that the only place I have been to in Africa is Lagos, Nigeria. So the moment my roster came out last month and I saw Cape Town, I was pretty excited to say the least! I’d never been to South Africa before, and to add to that my brother Harry had been there for the past 2 months and he agreed to come and meet me!
The flight over was pretty easy and uneventful. It was around 9 hours, and we got 1 hour rest in the bunks which helped break up the flight a bit. As it was a night flight leaving around 4am most of the passengers went straight to sleep! Once we arrived in Cape Town, Harry was waiting at the airport having just arrived from Johannesburg. We all got to the hotel and then around 9 of us arranged to go on a tour that the concierge organised for us. Our hotel was near the waterfront, and the tour took us all the way down to Cape Point, the south-western most point of Africa, to see Cape of Good Hope, and also to see some adorable penguins near Simonstown!
This was our first stop. Unfortunately it was very windy and cloudy, but the view was still incredible.
After that quick stop for some awesome pictures, we drove on down to Cape of Good Hope. It got even windier and started raining as well, but that wasn’t stopping us! We walked all the way up to the lighthouse on the top so we could get an amazing view out onto the ocean. (the walk was actually not very far at all, only about 20 minutes!)
By far the best way to go up a mountain!
After a quick stop in the “Curio Shop” aka souvenir shop to pick up a couple of postcards, we continued our journey heading back up towards the hotel to see some PENGUINS!!
As it was still really windy and rainy we didn’t stop for too long, but there was enough time to walk along the specially made path by the breeding area. We saw so many adorable little penguins, and lots of babies as well.
We passed by what is supposedly the world’s longest beach on our way home. There were so many surfers out there!
Once we were back at the hotel a few of us arranged to go for dinner by the waterfront. Of course we had to go for steak in South Africa, and I have to say although it by far wasn’t the best steak I’ve ever had, it was pretty tasty!
The next morning Harry and I went down to make the most of the breakfast buffet (I even managed to get him the crew discount!) and had a little walk around the hotel to burn it off again before it was time to get ready for the flight back.
Harry was flying standby on my flight home and luckily he just managed to get on at the very end. The flight was around the same flying time as coming over, but because it was a daytime flight everybody was awake, hungry and thirsty! I barely had a minute to sit down and eat, let alone chat to Harry. It was insanely busy and I felt like I was a waitress taking orders from everybody! (But no tips…haha) I was so glad when we finally touched down in Dubai!
Harry stayed with me in Dubai for a couple of days and we found a great seafood restaurant, went up the top of the Burj Khalifa, had a very hot day at the beach (41 degrees!) and before we knew it it was time for his flight home and for me to go back to work.
My roster for October has just come out and I’m going to be in Munich for the last weekend of Oktoberfest, spend 30 hours in Seoul, South Korea, do a turnaround to the Maldives (if only we got to stay there!), discover another new place in Africa – Casablanca, go back to Kuala Lumpur again, and finally finish the end of the month with two German flights, Hamburg and Frankfurt. I’m most excited for Seoul and Casablanca, as these are new destinations for me! 🙂