Boulders Beach & Penguins

Just up the coast from Simon's Town is Boulders Beach

...where a colony of African penguins live

...which made Jake very very happy :)

We were able to spend several hours enjoying the penguins up close as they wandered freely

posing 

singing

waddling around the beach

 and the rocks

and going for a swim

 Here we are venturing into the cold waters of False Bay (the Indian Ocean side)

 More amusing warning signs



We really enjoyed our time with the penguins!

The Cape Peninsula

As part of our Cape Town trip, we rented a car and spent a day driving around the coast, including to Cape Point, the Cape of Good Hope, Boulder Beach and some of the beach towns.  We were also able to stay a couple nights enjoying one of these lovely beach communities.

the entrance to Cape Point

pointing the directions and distances to al the world's major cities

the old lighthouse

the new lighthouse, ship wrecks litter this coast

the Cape of Good Hope

Rachel and I being brave and heading down into the frigid water...and demostrating all the places Chacos go

enjoying the beach, and only the beach due the water being full of jelly fish and cold...



until we saw this baboon who stumbled upon a watermelon half left on the beach...he was very content until the rest of his large troop found him and came running over the hill towards him and us, yelling...and we all became very scared...and started moving as quickly as possible towards the car

...due to signs like this one, which are posted all over

Simon's Town

Our lovely Guesthouse in the fishing town of Kalk Bay

and the view of Kalk Bay

our group enjoying a lovely fresh seafood dinner

next up...Jake's favorite part of the trip :)

Cape Town Harbor

More of lovely Cape Town, including a wonderful cruise of the harbor...

Table Mountain

Nobel Square...honoring South Africa's four Nobel Peace Prize laureates: Albert Luthuli, Desmond Tutu, F.W. De Klerk, and Nelson Mandela.

Dolphins

Beautiful Sunset

Up next...more animals, or maybe an exciting post from Jake...to encourage people to start reading our blog again :)

Table Mountain

We were blessed with a wonderfully clear--table-cloth free--day to see Table Mountain in Cape Town

How the non-ambitious who don't have all day to hike, get up on top

 View of the bay

 Many varieties of pretty succulents

Rock Dassies--their closest relative is the elephant!

 My fellow residents- Sara, Rachel and Susana

note the World Cup Soccer stadium (round building to left near water)

 another lovely view of the bay

Encountering Cheetahs

We've been absent for a while from the blogging world...there are reasons for that, but we'll get to those later.  In recent days I have finally been sorting through more photos from our trip to Africa.  So picking up where I left off...

One of the other great perks about visiting Spier Winery is that they have a Cheetah Reserve.  As the population expands and more land is being settled for agriculture, the cheetah is one animal that is becoming extinct due to loss or habitat and natural prey, and therefore increasing conflict with humans.  So Spier houses a Cheetah Reserve that takes care of rescued cheetahs (mostly rescued as cubs) and does a lot with education and awareness to protect cheetahs.  It was very interesting to learn about.

This is a Turkish Anatolian Shepherd dog, which the rescue group breeds and places on area farms as guard dogs for the livestock as part of the cheetah protection effort to help reduce the conflict between cheetahs and farmers.  They are very large dogs!

This is Joseph...he is 9 years old...and I was able to "encounter" him at the outreach :)

If interested, you can read more about cheetahs and the reserve here: http://www.cheetah.co.za/default.html

It was a really cool experience!