Every touristy place has a set of “must see” sights and activities. For Cape Town, Table Mountain is one of these – and we covered that yesterday. Another is a tour of the Cape, which is the peninsula that extends south 35 miles from Cape Town itself to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. The vast majority of the Cape is included in Table Mountain National Park.

We took this tour with a guide eight years ago during our first trip. Abs and Trey, who visited Cape Town for a wedding before they were even married, did the tour on their own in a rental car. But now we did it with their three children along.

The first stop was a Maiden’s Cove, a bay ringed by some rock formations which the kids had some fun with. We took a bunch of pictures and then moved on.

Nic, our driver, was doing a great job both explaining what we were looking at and entertaining everyone. He looked like someone I knew, and I struggled to place him. Then it hit me and I looked back at some old pictures.

Nic was the same guide that took Sally and me on the Cape Tour during our first trip to South Africa in 2017! This is the kind of coincidence that’s hard to imagine. We used different travel agents, who booked through different local outfitters, and we wound up with the same guy! When I showed him the 2017 picture, he was flabbergasted as well.

The next stop was one that the kids, and the adults, were especially looking forward to. Near Simon’s Town on the east side of the peninsula there is a colony of African penguins. African penguins mostly live on islands off the southern coast of Africa, with this colony near Simon’s Town being the only mainland example. The penguins put on a show for visitors, waddling around, jumping in the ocean, nesting and caring for their young. There is a boardwalk with a viewing area that you are restricted to.

From there we headed to the furthest point south we would reach, Cape Point. The Cape of Good Hope, which is a mile or so west of Cape Point, is often thought of at the dividing line between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans and is slightly south of Cape Point (1). But Cape Point is the tourist stop, due to the dramatic ridge that towers over the ocean, and the funicular that one can take to the top. You can also walk, which everyone but Sally and I did – we opted to ride.

Our last stop (after from a tasty lunch) was at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. Nic lead us on a tour and explained what we were looking at; that’s much more useful than us just wandering around and wondering what everything was.

Dinner was at a wonderful steak house called Bovine. The food was excellent. Tomorrow we leave at 8:30 to catch a flight up north towards our first safari day.

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(1) Neither is the southern-most point of Africa; that is Cape Agulhas, located about 93 miles east of the others.