No trip to Cape Town is complete without a visit to the Two Oceans Aquarium
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Wine Country
A visit to wine country was not part of our original plans but there was a 38,000 person cycling race in Cape Town which had all the roads closed the day we needed to get from the beach to the airport. So, poor us we HAD to go to Franschhoek. We had to stay in a spectacularly beautiful B&B, had to go to an amazing French restaurant and eat oysters, drink wine and choke down the most amazing meal... wow, is life rough here in Africa or what?
Close encounters
On the grounds of the Spier Vineyard is an animal outreach and encounter facility. They have 'ambassador' animals which are available for encounters. We were able to keep this side-trip a secret from O, aka Mr. Cheetah. I think "stunned" is an appropriate description of his reaction (everyone's!) at getting to spend some time with and to pet this snoozy cheetah named Pedro. The boys also got to do an 'eagle encounter' and got to see all kinds of raptors up close. They both got to hold these eagle owls (below). This photo is from the end of their time in the owl flight cage. The boys had heavy leather gloves on but one talon of this owl was off the edge of the leather and poking FPFJ's arm. All part of the experience.
Jackass Penguins
Not the first to dream of flight
Penguins are of course high on the list of charismatic megafauna.
Despite that they are uber-cute, not all that shy and not all that quick on land, it was really difficult to get an interesting photo! We visited Boulders Beach three times and I must have 300 pictures of penguins....close up, far away, in little rows, in cute little bunches, snuggling together, hopping from rock to rock, waddling up the beach, scrambling down the boulders into the water, trying to sneak into the nearby bistro, parading down the street, etc. These were the only keepers.
This colony numbers around 1000 penguins; they are one of 16 penguin species. This species has colonies at 28 sites, mostly offshore islands. The Boulders Beach colony is one of only 3 mainland colonies. The funny thing is that the Penguins themselves decided to settle here in Simon's Town in the 1980s at a public swimming beach in a suburban setting.
Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens
Below, a temporary sculpture pavilion I was particularly interested in seeing:
This wall is a 'living wall' created using a metal frame and 2L soda bottles (see detail below). Gorgeous.
Cross Country
O has been running cross country in PE and was speedy enough to get invited to the inter-school cross country meets at Musikili Primary in Mazabuka and Baobab College just outside of Lusaka. The kids come from all over and from all walks of life. There is the sugar refinery school, from the private primary boarding school, from day schools and international schools. LICS kids are for some reason the only ones who favor wearing shoes, although our best runners do not. The races for Owen's age group are about 1.3-1.5 km long. O is coming in at the back of the pack but he's one of the fastest runners for our school. This was really discouraging for the first meet but for the second one he saw that he needed to do his own best race. He seems to be enjoying it, so we'll carry on. He declined the invitation for being in Junior team swimming -- it's a big time commitment for such a young age. Should kids this young be competing like this at all? I did as a kid but as a parent, I'm not sure.
The best part about any school field trip is the time when you don't have anything to do but play.
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