Table with a View

I have eaten lunch at many restaurants that boast a great view.  However, not many could top the view we had today.

 

That’s right, we went to an area known for whale watching and I snapped this photo during lunch!  At one point a whale breached several times in a row and multiple patrons (myself included) jumped the half wall surrounding the restaurant and ran to the edge of the cliff for a better view.

We took a scenic drive today that wound around mountains on one side and ocean on the other.  The water was a gorgeous blue with large swells that crashed into the rocks.  We had to stop several times on the drive just so I could take pictures.

Our first official stop was Betty’s Bay which is home to one of only two colonies of African penguins on the mainland (the other penguin colonies are on islands).  The African penguin is endangered due to prior practices of hunting their eggs.  They live naturally in this area and efforts have been made to provide additional nesting places for them in this colony so the population will grow.  The colony boasts several thousand penguins and a boardwalk was built on top of the area so tourists could see the penguins without disturbing them.  I was thrilled to see penguins in the wild and the girls liked that they could be so close to them.

From there we curved between mountains and oceans until we came to the town of Hermanus which is known for the excellent land-based whale watching.  We weren’t sure how often whales were sighted but we saw one as soon as we exited the parking lot.  We saw numerous whales throughout the day including a mother and baby.  Several of the whales were very active and did a lot of jumping.  Unfortunately, my photography skills do not do justice to the grandeur of these animals.  The type of whale is the “right whale” and they are known to be frequent jumpers.  Miranda and Thandokuhle liked seeing them jump but other than that they found whale watching to be a little boring.  The scenery was absolutely breathtaking so they still enjoyed themselves even though they didn’t see quite as many whales.

There were many tourists on the top of the cliffs to photographs the whales.  However, we noticed one Asian tourist who was taking pictures of Miranda and Thandokuhle instead (they were the only black children there).  He even got them to pose and wave to the camera for him.

We received some more good news today.  We heard from the doctor and learned that all the sputum samples came back negative.  So, Thandokuhle is officially cleared from a medical perspective to travel to the US and no more spitting samples are needed! YAY!