Penguins Galore!

What a view!  We woke up this morning looking at the Indian Ocean.

Boulder Beach

Hey, there's a penguin right there!

Today is the day we decided to go for a walk and check out the penguins.  The girls were really looking forward to seeing them so off we went.  Not far from our place is Boulders Beach which is part of Table Mountain National Park.  We started our walk by following a fenced in path that led to the park’s kiosk.  Along the way we had our first sighting of a penguin.  They are truly cute!  They were poking out of their burrows and some had some chicks with them.  Some burrows were what looked like large old fashioned milk containers.  Apparently they make it easier for them to borrow and provides protection from the heat.  One thing I learned in reading some information about the penguins was that the penguins here are endangered so special measures have been put in place to help protect them.  

Daisys

As we walked along Jenna had a shock as a “Daisy” as they referred by the locals sat in a tree that was slightly overhanging the path right above her.  The daisies are super cute creatures about the size of a marmot but look like a brown guinea pig.  I took a few pictures because I thought it was so cute but had that been a snake I may have ran back to the car.  Upon arriving at the park kiosk we paid our fee and proceed down a boardwalk that was meant to keep people on the trail and away from the penguins.  As we got closer to the beach we saw more and more penguins and all we kept thinking was they are sooo cute especially when they walked.  Jenna took a short video of one as it walked around.  For a little while we had great views of the penguins as they went about their day.  At one point I just sat on a bench and just took in the beautiful day and the scenery before me.  Unfortunately it didn’t last forever as a couple of tour buses came and with the boardwalk not being that big it  made it really hard to see much of anything so we decided it was time to go.  Before leaving we had to stop in at the gift shop as Alyssa was dying to buy a stuffed penguin.  Believe it or not she didn’t have any problem finding one which she has since named “Boulder”.  With the purchase of a stuffed animal a portion of the sales goes back to the protection of the penguins which made Alyssa feel even better about her purchase.

Are you looking at me?

 We still had a fair bit of day left so we decided to head into Cape Town to check out the waterfront.  Alyssa really wanted to go to the aquarium but we didn’t have enough time for a decent visit before it closed.  When we first got to the waterfront we were welcomed by some great African music.  I am not sure if they were scheduled to be there or if they were buskers but we thought they were pretty good.  Not far from here was the South African equivalent of MEC.   We popped in as I thought I could use a warmer top for the Safari as it has been colder than I anticipated. After a quick look we headed back out to look around.  The wind was picking up and it was getting rather cool.  We saw a number of boats including one that was called the “Jolly Roger” that looked like an old wooden pirate ship.  Apparently you can book kids birthday parties on there and Alyssa thought that would be awesome. After walking around for a bit the girls were getting cold so we started to head back.  Kevin took us through some buildings that had different shops in them and Jenna could not understand why he would do such a thing if he had no intention of letting us look.  Have I mentioned Kevin doesn’t like to shop?  

Downtown Cape Town along the Quay with Table Mtn in the background.

On the way back home I know I fell asleep and I think one of the girls did too.   After eating dinners for the last month or so around 9 pm it seems strange to have everything pitch black by 6:30 pm.  The darkness definitely makes for a shorter day not to mention I feel like I need to go to sleep a lot earlier.   There is no heat in our place so we filled up the hot water bottles, read, watched TV and then called it a night.

Baby penguin hanging out waiting for mom.