A Wintery Day in Cape Town

What do you do on a winter's day in Cape Town? Keep going - it's a place that can treat you to bright sunshine, drizzle, very strong winds, plus sideways rain, all in one day. Such conditions often make for more interesting photos than if it were in the middle of summer with picture-perfect skies.

After a good seafood lunch at the Harbour House restaurant in Kalk Bay we struggled into the wind outside to take a few snaps - which lucky for us included a sighting of two Southern Right Whales swimming about just off the coast.

Quayside at Hout Bay - fried snoek and chips is a local staple - but don't forget the locals!

Hout Bay is a very busy fishing port about 40 mins drive from the centre of Cape Town - the quayside is full of characters, including a few seals that flop about hoping to get fish scraps straight off the boat.

Overview of Simons Town, a naval base on the False Bay side of the Cape Peninsular.

One reason to visit Simons Town is not the navy - but the colony of African Penguins that have made Boulders Beach their home. Raised walkways keep the public away from disturbing the penguins who shuffle back and forth among the sand dunes to their burrows.

With rain sleeting across the bay we saw several rainbows, some almost at eye level. There was a fella snorkelling off these rocks - he suddenly popped out of the very cold (14C) water without, it would seem, anything in his catch bag.

Here are a few views taken in the Cape of Good Hope National park. Although not the most southerly part of Southern Africa (that's at Cape Agulhas) it remains an impressive park notably because of its fynbos biome, a unique type of vegetation that's perfectly designed to flourish in the harsh climatic regions around Cape Town and the Western Cape. The plants are tough, many of its leaves look like flowers, and many of its flowers are spectacular. Fynbos has one of the world's richest biodiversities with more than nine thousand species recorded. When we visited the Cape, the surf was thundering against the rocks and the wind so strong that the seabirds, so often on the wing amongst the wave tips, were all sheltering from the waves. The wind gusts were almost strong enough to blow us over.