Cape Point

VulcanSpirit
Richard & Alison Brunstrom
Sat 2 Jan 2016 18:24
Cape point was described by Sir Francis Drake, the very first circumnavigator, as “the fairest cape in all the world”. I think he’s right - it really is a beautiful and spectacular place.
It’s also very very popular and there are masses of people about. However the SA National Parks Service has done a quite wonderful job providing first class facilities cleverly harmonised with the landscape; there are toilets here, two restaurants, and a gift shop, but you’d hardly know it. The scenic grandeur is unspoilt in a way which puts the UK abomination of Land’s End not just to shame, but to abject humiliation. Here is half of the VS team arriving:


And here she is on the top, surprisingly now closer to London than to Sydney:

                      

The second photo above shows the view looking back from nearly the end of the peninsula to the northwest into the Atlantic. Cape Point old lighthouse is top right, and in the background is the rather feeble Cape of Good Hope. I am sure a mistake has crept in somewhere down the line, and that the original Cape of Good Hope was the bigger better one - what is now Good Hope is an insignificant pimple, barely justifying any name, never mind the world famous one it now bears. Odd, but no explanation has yet been forthcoming.

The third photo above is looking down onto the extreme end of Cape Point, with the new lighthouse built to get underneath the cloud which often obscures the older light. Although geographers assert that the Indian Ocean and Atlantic meet at Cape Agulhas, Africa’s southernmost point, some way to the east, oceanographers and biologists say that Cape Point is the true meeting place. This is because on its eastern side is warm tropical water brought down by the Agulhas current, while on its western side is the cold South Atlantic water brought north by the Benguela current. The water on the eastern side of Cape Point is several degrees warmer than the west. Extraordinary. 

Below are three shots of the modern Cape of Good Hope. Originally and aptly named the Cape of Storms by its Portuguese discoverers, the name was changed by the King of Portugal personally  to encourage seafarers heading for the East Indies (the overland route at the time being blocked by the Turks). The first is of Good Hope from Cape Point, looking out into the Atlantic. The second shows Alison and Hannah Stewart sitting on Good Hope, with Cape point in the background and in the far distance the other side of False Bay trending round towards Agulhas (out of sight). The third shot shows Hannah standing on Good Hope with the view to the north up the Atlantic coast towards Cape Town (some 50km distant). The whole area is a beautiful National Park.