And some pork belly for the road!

Tapas tonight

Back in Cape Town for the night as we have a flight to Kruger national Park Tomorrow morning. We are spending two nights at Nottens Bush Camp And will be "off the grid" as they say. No electricity in our tented safari camp.
Tonight we ate eating crispy asparagus Parmesan rolls, wild ostrich with mango chutney, and kudu with fried onion rings. So good!!

Great White Shark Dive!

What a fun
experience. We got up very early this morning to make our way to Gansbaii for the excursion. We got out on the water and it was a very short 15 minute boat ride out to the site. Our boat guide Vian said it was as close to 100% chance that we would see a great white. There were about 20 people on the boat and Collin and Olivia were the only kids. Once we got out there he went over the rules, mostly, DO NOT put your hands outside the cage. The we waited, and waited...and waited. Everyone was getting very antsy and we were starting to throw in the towel that we would even see one. The crew seemed perplexed. Finally after an hour and a half of staring at the bait line of several bloody fish heads the skipper yelled, "SHARK ALIVE" and the fun began. We saw a great white female about 11 foot long reach her head out of the water. Collin was in t, he first group to go down in the cage. The water was freezing! He got to go under a couple of times as she kept swimming by. Then it was Doug and I and Olivia's turn, but it was just to cold for Olivia to wait in the cage, and honestly the best viewing was really from atop of the boat, so she got out but Doug and I went under three more times to get some great views. It was the best day and we all had a fantastic time!


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Of course no drive here would be complete without having to stop for some baboons crossing the road!


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Location:Another baboon sighting!

Getting informed about how wine is made-- everything an 8 and 10 year old need to know!

The day in Hermanus

There are lots of vineyards and wineries here in South Africa. We toured one called Creation. The view are gorgeous and the kids enjoyed dessert and we did a wine tasting. We also got a cellar tour that was really informative and we all enjoyed.








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No shark dive today

We got a knock on our door early this morning that our shark dive today had been cancelled due to strong winds. We were so disappointed! Except maybe Olivia who isn't sure about this whole thing. But we rescheduled for tomorrow...good thing we planned for two days here so we could have two opportunities to go if needed. We are scheduled to go at 7:30am tomorrow and the weather looks much more promising so we will keep our fingers crossed. We drove down to the Barbour today so we could see what our boat will look like and hopefully reassure Olivia. No need to talk Collin into it! Here is what the boat will look like and the cage we will be in.


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King Prawns for dinner- yum!!

Cape Point-- where two oceans merge

This is the point where the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean meet.

After this we headed down to Hermanus Beach about a 2 hour drive. We have our great white shark cage dive in the morning. Can't wait!!


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The top of Cape Point

We took a funicular(cable railway) up to the top of Cape Point


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The Porsche Club

This must be the Porsche club out for a drive


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Zebras at Cape Point

We saw some wild zebras as we were driving to Cape Point


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Wild Baboons

There are these huge wild baboons all over and we saw 3 crossing the road. This guy decided to jump up on the sign. Crazy!


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African Penguins

Today we drove about an hour south of Cape Town to the Boulders Beach which is home to a colony of African penguins. These guys are so darn cute! You can see the holes they make in the sand for their nests.


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FaceTime

Too cool to be able to face time Grandpa from so far away!


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Victoria and Alfred Waterfront

This is the waterfront working harbor that has tons of shops and restaurants. We had dinner here and we looked up and saw the clouds coming over Table Mountain. Our driver told us the Capetonians call that the tablecloth.



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Another view from the top

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The Rock Hyrax

These little critters were up on Table Mountain. They look like fat, brown, rabbits without the ears. Weird fact...the Rock Hyrax closest relative is the African Elephant!


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This cable car holds 65 people and the floor rotates 360 degrees so everyone got full view on their way up.


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Location:Cable car to Table Mountain

This is the view from the top of table mountain. We took a cable car to the top-- the views were incredible! It is believed to be the oldest mountain in the world forming under the sea 600 million years ago.


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Location:Table Rock Mountain

Here is the view of Cape Town. It is a really beautiful city.


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Location:Cape Town

I thought we rented an automatic

You know what this means? First, Doug will kill it at least 4 times and second, Nicole is going to be car sick


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Johannesburg to Cape Town

It's a bright and early Friday morning here In Johannesburg. It's looking like a bright, sunny day. No black Friday shopping for me this year.
We got in late last night after a long flight--And up before 5am this morning, but feel great-- just need to stay up past 9pm tonight to try and adjust. We are exactly 8 hours ahead of CST.
We have a noon flight to Cape Town today where we will rent a car and really start to see some things. Hope to get lots of pictures to share today.
Fingers crossed that Collin and I can find the game somewhere-- online I am sure- that should help keep us up tonight!! GBR..

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One leg of the journey complete

We are laying over in Amsterdam after an 8 hour flight. We still have an 11 hour flight to get to Johannesburg yet today. We jumped ahead 7 hours so it is Thanksgiving morning! We won't land until 10:15pm tonight so we will spend the night there and take a 2 hour fight to Capetown tomorrow. It sure isn't easy to get to South Africa. We are all feeling good, but a little tired. Wonder how much our internal clocks will be flipped around.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, have some turkey for us...don't think we will be getting any this year.


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Location:Schipol Airport Amsterdam

Counting down to our South Africa Trip

Tomorrow about this time we should be heading up to Omaha to catch a flight to Chicago and from there we will have 8 hours in the air to Amsterdam and then another 11 hours down to Johannesburg. The kids are excited and we are too! We have lots planned and hopefully I have good wifi service along the way to blog our trip.