It was with mixed feelings that we approached Cape Town; time to end the cruise but to begin a new adventure in South Africa. The plan was we arrive in Cape Town at 1:00 pm on 20 Dec, half day tour to include the cable car to Table Mountain, dinner with friends at one of the “specialty restaurants), overnight on board - pack, luggage outside the cabin by 11:00 pm, pick up next morning at 8:30 am, tour of Winelands and finish at accommodation in Franschhoek.

Phase 1. Arrived promptly at 1300 containers of food, seafood and general goods start to arrive at 1310. Food starts to be loaded but checked for quality first by the Executive Chef and the Provisioning Officer. Continues to be loaded until 2100 but continues the next morning.

Phase  2. 1400. Load the cattle onto the coach for a tour of Cape Town and Table Mountain. Drive to Table Mountain Cable Car station. But wait!! We forgot that it is Christmas holidays and families and schoolchildren are in town for Christmas. There are even queues for people who prepaid!  We queue for 45 minutes in the sun. The cable car ride 4 mins. Get to the tops and guide says you can stay here for 1 Hour!! What!!! Why?? You can see the views on 15 mins 30 at a stretch. However, the order is meet him in the queue to get down at 1600. Jill and I look at the vies have a Coke Zero and head for the queue - There he is - our Guide in the Queue 30 mins early. Let’s join him, there others in our group there already. But what about the remainder of the group - will they join the end of queue at 1600 or will they join the guide. We could see it coming - all the group except two sitting in the coach for a long time waiting for the rest to arrive - and that is exactly what happened. By the way, The queue at the top to get down was another 45 mins in the sun. A very satisfying Grumpy Old Man’s Experience.

Phase 3,  2000. Dinner in Signatures Restaurant with a Canadian Couple who we had got to know. He was a retired financial planner and she was married to him. The were staying on until Singapore a total of 61 Days!! The food was fantastic I had Crab Bisque and Tornados Rossini while Jill had Lobster and Fish all washed down with South African Chenin Blanc and Pinotage ( The label told me that it came from a wine wholesaler/bottler in Salford in England!!)

Phase 4  .  2200. We had done a pre pack because we had decided to fill one suitcase and send it from Franschhoek to Johannesburg. We were very satisfied with ourselves because we had even laid out our clothes for the morning. So we placed the bags outside the door - they were taken away nearly instantly. Next morning we realised - What do we do with the clothes we took off last night? Answer squeeze them into the carry on bags, by the way we now have an extra carry on because of the ceramics we bought in Durban!!