Today starts off as another beautiful day - clear and sunny, with just a nice cool twinge to it. We pack up the campsite and are on our way just after 8 AM. As we drive out of the campsite and can see the table mountain in the near distance, we can sense that the weather will change.
Dark, heavy clouds are literally beginning to roll off the mountain top. While it is a sign of bad weather to come, it is a beautiful sight with the full moon setting just above the clouds. We stop the truck to get a better look and to take some photos.
We then head on our way, back down the dirt road through the Cederberg range to the main road below. It is as enjoyable ride down as it was coming up. Once we hit the sealed road, however, the bad weather breaks and it begins to rain. We drive on our way to Cape Town in the rain - which comes and goes. At times it is very heavy.
When we reach the outskirts of Cape Town, we stop at a road side rest stop that has a view of Cape Town across the bay. But our view is obstructed by all the low laying clouds - at least it is not raining. We take the opportunity to have lunch.
After lunch we skirt Cape Town itself and head down the cape to Simon's Town, where we will spend the night. We have a few hours in the town to walk around and to check things out. After a bit of window shopping, we head to a cafe overlooking the bay for a cup of coffee and tea. Once back at the truck, we have a short drive to the campsite, which is on a steep hill overlooking the bay.
We spend a few hours setting up camp and re-packing our bags. We will be leaving the trip tomorrow and after some many months on the road, it takes some time to organise all our stuff. Then a quick shower before the farewell dinner. We rush down to the shower block, only to find out that we can only seem to get cold water. Given the air temperature, that would not be very pleasant. After a while, we find one stall with a bath that that had hot shower - could not quite figure it out, but we were glad for the hot water.
We then had a farewell dinner and party that was insane. A lot was lost in the haze induced by the alcohol and the possible loss of millions of brain cells. It was a crazy night. This was our last night on the trip - in the morning we were going to drive the short distance to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope and complete our Trans-Africa - and it affected our mood. We were already on a natural high.
We had a few drinks in the bar, and then moved onto dinner. It was a buffet - nothing special, but it filled us up. We had a few bottles of wine on the table and they went quickly. At the end of the meal, we had an awards ceremony. The drivers - Gilly, Gina and Jim - did a great job. Everyone got a bit of a roasting and we all had a good laugh.
Then onto the bar for the heavy drinking. As we had run out of wine supplied with dinner, we went out and snuck in the few remaining bottles of our own wine that we had and we quickly polished those off. The worst (or best) part of the evening was that we had started early on mixing our drinks. After the wine was finished off, we decided to have a few springbok races. In a springbok race, you line about a row of shot glasses filled with a sot of springbok - a lethal combination of Amarula and Creme de Menthe and then the line of drinkers has to hop towards the shot glasses with their hands on their heads forming antlers and drink the springbok without using their hands. It is not as easy as it sounds.
From there it degenerated into wild dancing, singing, attempting to balance on one bent leg (with Jim showing how it is done) and a bit of stripping. It was wild and crazy.
A few people wandered around outside, enjoying the night sky and even going down to watch the penguins on the beach. In the end, a few people needed help getting to bed (no names will be mentioned).
It was a great night.