A few days ago we reached Cape Town! It’s a big milestone for us and the end of our track south through Africa. From here it’ll be back ‘up’ the west coast all the way to Morocco. A route that should take around 6 months and pass through: Namibia, Angola, D.R.C, Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, C.A.R, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Gambia, Senegal, Western Sahara and Mauretania.
It’ll be interesting if not a little wet… the rainy season is coming!!

While in Cape Town we’re staying with Gideon, a friend we met on the road in Kenya (he’s actually just finished riding his BMW from Hamburg to Cape Town). We’ll stay here for a few days to recharge our batteries, apply for some more visas and service the bike which is crying out for a little attention… literally

On the way here from Coffee Bay, we followed the coastline passing through some of South Africa’s favourite holiday spots. The scenery, like in many parts of this country reminded us of Australia, except that instead of kangaroos and koalas you have lions and elephants We were twice invited to spend the night with complete strangers. First by Jim and Sheila at a set of traffic lights. They’re part owners of a farm and wildlife park which is not open to the public. Their friend Nick took us on a private motorcycle tour seeking out giraffe, zebra, kudu, impala and other African game. We also spotted Sheila going for her daily jog with the wild ‘pets’
On another occasion, Bruwer the owner of a fish & chip shop and motorcycle enthusiast, invited us back to his place for some more South African hospitality. Who says the whole world is rotten…

Motorcycle travelers are treated really well in this country and it goes against the grain of all the horror stories we’ve heard about violence and crime. It’s not to say it doesn’t exist. You definitely get a sense of aggression and unease that’s absent in other African countries. Especially out on the roads, where we almost got run into the gutter by a local taxi/mini van that thought we had cut him off and wanted to get some of his own back. It was a close call…

Many people think the Cape of Good Hope is where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans cnverege. But in fact it’s at Cape Agulhas, the southern most point in Arica. The only thing south of this point is Antarctica.

Cape Town lies at the head of an awsome peninsular, dominated by a stretch of mountain peaks and surrounded by small bays and beaches. Boulder’s beach is popular with the penguins…

At the very tip of the peninsula is Cape Point (the south-western most point in Africa :)) From here it’s only 9,667km to Singapore. We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because its taken us over 52,000km’s…