Dear, dear Johnny and Uncle Tumbley

Well, after nearly 24 hours, door to door, we’ve finally arrived at lovely Camps Bay in Cape Town, the first leg of this South Africa road trip. Our journey started with a Turkish Airlines flight to the magnificent new Istanbul airport, now the largest airport in the world, and they’ve still not finished building it. The second part of our journey, was also with Turkish Airlines. An excellent flight, but a bit tight with the inflight refreshments. One circuit of the drinks trolly for an eleven hour flight😡?? And hardly any flight information from the pilot either. Could have been Uncle Tumbley the Tumbling Turk flying the plane for all we knew.😉

Anyway, finally arriving at Cape Town we were collected by Johnny, who owns our accommodation close to Camps Bay seafront  for the next few days. Probably one of the coolest, most laidback dudes I’ve ever met. I mean, who turns up to collect people from an international airport wearing shorts, tee shirt and flip flops? Apparently he spends six months of the year in Cape Town managing his property portfolio and the remaining six months (our summer) in Majorca sailing rich folks around the Med on luxury yachts. Nice life if you can get it.

First port of call was the Surfshack bar and restaurant on the seafront for a bite to eat and some refreshments to make up for the lack of them from Uncle Tumbley.

One minor problem with Camps Bay is that it’s actually ‘dry’ (no alcohol on sale in any supermarket and no liquor stores) since the locals don’t want people drinking on the beach and in the streets. However, not really a problem since Dizzy’s bar just across the road from our billet for the next few days were happy to knock out a perfectly acceptable Western Cape Shiraz for us for the princely sum of around £6 a bottle and local craft beer for around £2.50 a pint. Certainly made for a good nightcap and tomorrow, suitably refreshed from a good night’s sleep, we’re heading off to Robben Island, where hundreds of political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe were incarcerated. Should be an interesting, if moving day.