Monday 26th October

Back on the Hop-On-Hop-Off, this time the Peninsula Tour to Hout Bay.  Cape Town is certainly a beautiful city, colour everywhere.

Our first stop was Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens nestled at the eastern foot of Table Mountain.  The garden is one of nine National Botanical Gardens covering five of South Africa's six different biomes. 

When Kirstenbosch, the most famous of the gardens, was founded in 1913 to preserve the country's unique flora, it was the first botanical garden in the world with this ethos. Kirstenbosch places a strong emphasis on the cultivation of indigenous plants.

The garden includes a large conservatory (The Botanical Society Conservatory) exhibiting plants from a number of different regions, including savanna, fynbos, karoo and others. Outdoors, the focus is on plants native to the Cape region, highlighted by the spectacular collections of proteas. From the gardens several trails lead off along and up the mountain slopes. 

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens

Next stop, a little down the Road was World of Birds Wildlife Sanctuary and Monkey Park (often shortened to World of Birds).  The park is an avian, reptilian and wildlife sanctuary although as suggested by its name, the focus is primarily on birds and monkeys. It is the largest African bird park and among the bird parks in the world with the higher number of species.

Of the approximately 400 animal species, about 330 are birds; the third highest bird diversity of any zoo that primarily focuses on this animal group. The vast majority of the birds in the park are exhibited in walk-through aviaries. In total there are more than 100 aviaries.

Among the many birds are groups such as penguins, rheas, waterfowl, eagles, owls, pelicans, flamingos, pheasants, parrots, hornbills, tucos and weavers. Among mammals are various monkeys (including babooms, marmosets and tamarins) meerkatsan and porcupines, and reptiles include green iguana, monitor lizards and tortoises.

In addition to exhibiting animals, World of Birds has a breeding centre for threatened species and wildlife rehabilitation for injured (wild) birds.

There was certainly a huge collection to be seen but we did feel a bit sorry for the animals as the whole place really needed some TLC.  Having said that one can't imagine how difficult it must be to run such an exhibition.

World of Birds

Back on the bus to Houts Bay where we met up with the others for a late lunch at Mariner's Wharf.

Lunch at Market Wharf