The scenery around Cape Town is stunning, highlighted by brilliant blue skies and clear air. We have been so busy enjoying this wonderful country that it has been hard to find the time to write a blog.

Simon's Town has proved a good base to explore the region . It is tucked into the corner of False Bay just east of the Cape of Good Hope and has a well run marina, a selection of excellent restaurants and enough shops to keep us going. Its main industry is a naval dockyard once important to the British Navy and now the home of the South African Navy. We are woken to the sounds of naval whistles and general boatyard noise. The exception to this is when the wind is howling through the rigging as it is this morning.

Simon's Town flanked by sea and rocky hillsides.

Table Mountain and the views from it are as spectacular as they are reported to be, with the city laid out like a model far below.

The scenery on the flat top of the mountain is equally attractive with a range of colourful Fynbo vegetation.

This hill that cuts through the city below Table Mountain is Lion Rock, so called because from the city it looks something like a lion resting.

At the lower end of the reclining lion is Signal Hill where Monday to Saturday the ‘Noon Gun’ cannon is fired, a tradition that enabled the townspeople to synchronise their timepieces  …. and here we are doing the touristy thing from the lion's backside looking back to Table Mountain.

Table Mountain Park extends in discontinuous patches right through to Cape Point, the headland that is the furthest south west point of land of Africa and is therefore the actual Cape of Good Hope. Confusingly in the past the Cape was more often and appropriately called the Cape of Storms.

The whole of the headland is desolate and dramatic with the odd surprise around the corner such as these ostriches....

dad taking the little’uns for a walk,

....these bontebok, beautiful like most of the antelope we have seen in South Africa,

and this dangerous wild animal.

The coastline was suitably stormy whilst we were there and reminded us we need to be careful when we round the cape in a couple of weeks or so!

At this time of year the wind in and around Cape Town often blows at close to gale force usually form the south east. The local name for this wind is the Cape Doctor as it keeps the air fresh and healthy.

One of the reasons this area has such a unique climate is that the Cape is an important boundary where the warm waters of the Agulhas current that brought us south head off further southward and are replaced by the much colder Benguela current bringing cold water up from the Antarctic. One of the consequences of this is the water is very cold for swimming, especially on the west facing coast. It also means that even in Simon’s Town the night temperatures fall to a cool 18C.

Thanks to the effect of this cool water there is the African penguin also known as the jackass penguin from the braying donkey-like call it makes from time to time. Close to Simon's Town is an attractive beach where they make their nests. Down to only 2 pairs in the 1980s there are now estimated to be 2,200 on Boulders Beach. Such good news.

Such pleasant neighbours.