January 3
Today we got up early to head to the famous table mountain. It is quite amazing because the whole top of the mountain is totally flat! The original plan was to climb up the moutain but once we looked at the steep trail that lead up to the top we decided to change out minds. It would have been nice to hike it so we could get some exercise but it ended up to be a nice trip in the gondola anyway. The gondola is like grouse mountains but it is a bit smaller, it is round and the floor rotates so that you are able to have a 360 view of the city, water, and mountains. Someone was thinking! The view from the top of the mountain was amazing! I could see the whole horizon and the city below. It is crazy to think that as I was looking out into the horizon no other land was there except for Antartica! Once in a while you could spot a cargo ship or low cloud in the distance. Mom thought that the low cloud was a bird which was pretty fuinny:) So we spent a long time up there walking around and taking pictures. There are a bunch of walk ways all over the top of the mountain and it is a bit of a maze so we lost dad because he was taking pictures of flowers in the back of the 11 person train we have going on. We eventually found him so that was good. After our adventure on Table mountain we decided to hop onto the city bus tour from Table mountain which took us to all the major sights in Cape Town. There was a number of different stops that we could get off at and then get back on to another bus whenever we wanted. We got off at Camps Bay which is home to the nicest beaches I have ever seen in my life! The water is super cold...probably colder than a river in North Vancouver and the waves are so big. These two things could have detoured people away from going into the water but there still were many people playing in the water. The coolest thing about the beach was the huge pools of water the waves made. The waves were so large that it made a large slope down into the water and when the waves were really big the water went all the way up the beach and made a pool of water that was about 2 feet deep but ranged that whole length of the beach. It was perfect for all the kids and the water was a little warmer too. Perfect! Before leaving Camps Bay we stopped off at Nando's for lunch. Nando's started in South Africa by the Portugese who settled here back in the day. It is so much better than in Vancouver. I guess on its way to Vancouver it lost the spicy goodness...ummm! Our next stop was the clock tower (which I don't think we even saw) at the water front. This area reminded me of Granville Island because there was water ways, boats, shops, music playing, and lots of people! It was so hot that day so we started looking for icecream. Every icecream shop we went to was either stupid expensive (which is weird because it is really cheap here) or it was all melted in the freezer...it looked more like milkshake than icecream! Finally we found a spot but it turns out that it is pretty stressful getting icecream for 11 people ;) With icecream in hand we hoped back onto the bus which took us back to Table mountain where we had left our cars. After a long day we headed home for some dinner and relax for the next big day.  
Natalie