Marathon Day - that wasn't!

Today was the day for the Cape Town Marathon, so we thought it would be a write off – we had not realised that the start time was 6 am, so we had thought we were having an enforced rest day as the roads would be closed off – wrong on two counts! 

We could not understand why there were not runners everywhere – it turned out (we discovered at 2pm) that the marathon was cancelled at 5am due to the very high winds, structures were being blown down and it was just not safe to have 29k runners running.  I cannot imagine coming all this way for a race to have it cancelled an hour before it was due to start – imaging being the guy that made that decision!

We had a leisurely start to our day – we even made it to breakfast!  A first for this trip 😊

Then we headed out to wander around the last remaining V&A district that we had not already discovered –

Because we have not done much today, I am going to note down all of the stuff I have missed out of other blogs – and some top tips…

Firstly from our marathon tour from day 2:

1.      If your guide tells you not to walk into the bush – don’t ignore them – it does not matter how much dope you have had! Gordon had to tell our group lots of times to stay on the path, but people were still stepping into the undergrowth to get the ‘best shot’ of the ostrich or whatever – until he showed us a video of a puff adder casually slithering in front of the tour bus – Nope, not for me, I will always stay on the path!

2.      There were a couple of South Africans on our tour, and at one point we were treated to a beautiful rendition of their national anthem – it was so tuneful and evocative, and sang both in African and English – what a treat.  The South Africans are so proud of their country – and rightly so, and Emma and I were discussing how their flag flies everywhere, but alongside other flags, and it does not feel like a threat, or make us feel unwelcome – quite the opposite in fact!  How on earth has flying the Union Jack become so weaponised at home?

3.      Fire is a big risk here – the mountainside is already marked with a very visible line where a fire came right across the top of the mountain and was only extinguished very close to houses – they were very lucky and no-one was hurt.  We saw a bush fire on our travels and got to watch a helicopter from the fire service fly over a couple of times and drop water right on top of it – they were absolutely spot on target and managed to put it out.  Better than me at darts anyway.

4.      I did mention the other day about ostriches on the beach -someone who was on our tour very kindly sent me a pic

6.      I have never been overtly security conscious, but Emma has got me a bit paranoid and I now have my phone tethered to me with a flexi lead type thing – except I keep forgetting about it, and I did my usual trick of laying it on the top of the loo roll dispenser, and of course as I de-panted, It was dragged down to the floor – now I have a cracked screen, but my phone is secure…

7.      She is very tricky, that Emma, she did not tell the tour guide that she spoke a little Dutch until the end of the day and he went into a blind panic wondering what he had been saying through the day as he moved from one language to another speaking to the locals – he tried testing her understanding and she got everything right…. I don’t think he had said anything inappropriate at all, but it certainly gave him a fright!

8.      Someone asked me for a pic of our whip – once I had determined that meant our car, and was not a comment on my sexuality, here it is.

9.      I have also learned not to argue with the traffic marshals at Table Mountain – there was a HUGE argy bargy at one point because someone had stopped in the wrong place and was blocking the whole system – the marshall was yelling at him to move but the guy just kept putting his finger to his mouth and telling the guy to shhhh and calm down, then our guide joined in to make him move – there was quite a crowd by the end.

10.  I did not talk about driving along Chapman’s Peak drive on the tour – this is a road that has 141 curves and is 9km long – it had been on our list to do, but I am glad someone drove us!  I say 141 curves, but the man who built it also named the 12 Apostles peaks that we visited, and there are actually 18 of them, so who knows how many turns there are on that drive?!

On to the sharks – we were surrounded by Bronze Whaler Sharks, and we were not in any real danger – they only eat fish – that is not to say they would not take a bite to check if we tasted fishy!

And a clip of the dolphins...

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/ccc3e4_bb57b11065c84238904d2f09ba429dec/480p/mp4/file.mp4

We thought this was a cool idea :)

There is some really cool artwork all around this area

We have had an easy day, so we are continuing theme with an easy afternoon, trying the local gin - what could go wrong?

I'll tell you what -the bridges keep disappearing - just when we thought we knew where we were going, the bridge was gone (add this to the section of motorway outside our hotel that is just a bridge, not connected to anything!) but I swear we walked over this bridge two nights ago......

For dinner tonight, and probably becasue we were already a bit tipsy, we went to Bethazar (what3words retails.zone.follows) which is another 5* restaurant, which is apparently the best steak restaurant in Cape Town. Based on what we had, I would agree! We both went fo rAafrican dishes, I had Ostrich and EJ had fillet steak, both of which were so tender and absolutley gorgeous. EJ pushed the boat out and had the most indulgent ferrero rocher desert (the waiter brough two spoons so I was obliged to try some - yum). Of course we also had cocktails - we were trying to be sensible and not order a bottle of wine.. I dont think it helped!

We finished the night in Time Out for a last cocktail - the waiter tried to impress us by making one of his 'specials' I mean it was tasty, but he was adding some 'performance art' as a finishing touch - Emma and I started laughing and he realised he had drawn a phallic symbol in my drink! He hastily covered it up, and it was delicious, so he was forgiven :)

We are to bed now, ready for a day at the beach tomorrow :)