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Leaving Shelley Beach: 1623km since we left Cape Town

After a wonderful long walk on Shelley beach, which we had almost to ourselves, we drove up to Durban to dig up and sort through my past a little. Verdict: Not quite as grand or exotic as we thought (Durban or my past).

Regarding Durban, so much has changed and not much of it good. But that is progress, I guess.

Venue: Salon91 Contemporary Art Collection.
91 Kloof Street, Gardens, Cape Town.
20 Jan 2010 to20 Feb 2010

Participating Artists: Abigail Heyneke, Carmen Ziervogel, Ceri Muller, Dagmar Sissolak, Elise Wessels, Emma Cook, Gila Simons Band, Jade Klara, Katrine Claassens, Khandiz Towill, Lauren Schofield, Leonora van Staden, Mareliza Nel, Maya Marshak, Mine Jonker, Miss Yucki, Motelseven, 351073.

Total distance: 673km

This took us 9,5 hours! We had expected to fly through the old Transkei in about 6 hours (this was also the day I called myself the Maggie Thatcher of Road Trips). One mistake was to do the maths using 120km/h as average speed. Mistake number 2 (one is never enough) was leaving at 10.45am. My note to self for next time: Leave early and don’t expect to drive faster than 100km (often you will be going way slower than that).

Knysna is one of those must-see small towns in SA and a fairly obvious place to stop a (short) while. It is famous for the local oysters, stunning scenery and laidback way of life.

The Pink Loeries are also becoming quite an event to visit the town for. It is the 10th anniversary this year and we were assured that the festival is becoming one of the premier gay festivals in SA, especially for the ladies (Knysna seems to be crawling with ladies in sensible shoes, by the way).

After three fantastic years in Cape Town we are about to set off again in search of adventure.

We are heading to Costa Rica for the month of March to do a TEFL course and after that we hope to set out our stall in Barcelona as conversational English teachers for the rest of the year.

We will be publishing info about our travels and experiences of TEFL and teaching on our sister site www.LeavingSA.com.

Cape Town’s hottest new spot to see and be seen.

Absolutely stunningly designed restaurant and cocktail bar filled with CT’s beautiful and stylish set.

Kill for a table, the service is very good and the food delicious.

We were very impressed with the grilled calamari, which was sweet and succulent with a strong fresh lime flavour (R80).

A close second place went to the mussels. Strong sea flavour softened by a dash of cream (R80)

Resident hippo

Originally uploaded by Queen Tut

Resident baby hippo in St Lucia estuary. What a yawn! and I love its tail! LOL

The residents-only roof-top pool deck is definitely a reason to stay at the Cape Royale hotel!

Walk through the stylish space and quite a few other reasons will be obvious, but in a blistering week in Cape Town the pool deck seems reason enough for us.

Big stars for Astro Boy, Charlize Theron & Samuel L. Jackson.
This is what the director has to say.

Bowers: "Samuel L. Jackson, I don't want to give it away, because when his voice comes into the movie it's such a great moment. But he is playing a robot, and Charlize Theron, we have a little movie that opens the film. A movie within a movie. Charlize Theron is narrating it."

The kicks are higher and the laughs are louder at Vaudeville, Cape Town’s new 300-seater supper club. Step into this stunning, multi-level venue and feel the glamour and hedonism of bygone eras.

The city that gave us Madam Zingara continues to fly the flag for Good Times. Get down to Vaudeville, Cape Town’s newest supper theatre club, for a superb night out: lots of Bubbly, a three-course dinner and a spectacular 19-act show.