The main reason for this trip was the rugby World cup in Australia, but I thought that while I was taking the time off work as unpaid leaveI might as well do it properly and take in a few other places that I wanted to visit so with that thought in mind my first port of call was Cape Town , South Africa.
The Journey Over With the benefit of hindsight, given that I wasn't going to be getting paid for a while, turning down the offer of £200 cash or £400 in BA vouchers to take a later flight via Jo'burg instead of my booked direct flight to Cape Town was one that I should have accepted. But I was looking forward to getting away and they caught me unawares LOL. Anyway BA was a decent flight down ( about 10 hours) and I arrived reasonably fresh early in the morning. Taxi from the airport was easy enough to organise and pretty cheap by UK standards at about £25 to the centre of Cape Town itself from the airport.
I was staying at the house that my mum's S.O. owns there and it took me a while to unlock the various gates and numerous locks on the door. The vasr array of grills, locks, alarms and security devices bring it home very quickly that even in Cape Town ( one of South Africa's "safer" cities) security is an omnipresent factor. I had a wander around the house, which was very nice, it had a nice little coutyard with a jacuzzi and stairs up to a roof terrace that had magnificent veiws over Table Mountain and "Lion's Head" another mountain that over looks Cape Town. I'd been warned that if you get good weather GO UP TABLE MOUNTAIN because it's only about 2 days in 7 that you get clear views from the top of Table Mountain ( and oh my are they spectacular). With this in mind I order a "Ricky cab" which is a cheap way of getting round Cape Town, you share the back of what's basically a covered pick up truck with anyone that's going to your destination. It means you sometimes get a bit of a tour, but they're cheap and a good way to meet fellow travellers. It's only a short distance to the cable car station from central Cape town and cost about £1.50 for the journey. I can't remember the cost of the cable car, but it wasn't too much. http://www.worldisround.com/articles/25921/photo1.html ( there are a number of good photos following this one, click next to view them)
At the top you have a choice of three basic "walks" that are laid out in loops and easy to follow. A very short basic over look takes about 20 minutes, the middle course takes about 2 hours at a brisk walk ( I did this one but took my time) and finally a long trek to the high point of the mountain takes about 4-5 jours and you need to be in good shape to take this on. The weather can change quickly here and you do not want to be stuck out a long way from the cable car station when it gets windy or cold. Take warm clothes up here because even on a nice sunny, windless springday it was a bit chilly. This is a MUST DO for anyone going to Cape Town, the veiws are stunning, there is an interesting ecosphere on top of the mountain and it really is VERY FLAT LOL.
Over the next few days I had a couple of rounds of golf and I took a couple of full-day tours with Hylton Tours. I was very impressed with the guides of this company and I thought they were worth the slightly higher fees they charge. I took the full day winelands tour ( http://www.hyltonross.co.za/winelands-tours.html ) to Stellenbosch, Franschook and Paarl. I particularly enjoyed the winetasting
. The other tour I did was the Cape point tour ( http://www.hyltonross.co.za/cape-point-tour.html ) I liked the penguin colony visit where they have closed off an area of the beach from people so the penguins can get to their burroughs unhindered. It's been well done with wooden walkways so the penguins can walk under the walkway and the visitors get a great close up view of them waddling through. Another high point was the visit to Kirstenbosch botanical gardens, this is a stunning park and if you're interested in flowers, plants etc well worth renting a car and spending at least an afternoon there ( IMHo you could take close on a day at a relaxed pace here) http://www.nbi.ac.za/frames/kirstfram.htm
I also met up with a couple of my mom's friends who took me out for a couple of beers , this turned out to be a pretty long night and I had a slight headache the following day 
.
I really enjoyed Cape Town, it's certainly a place I plan to return to. Some great scenery, food and drink is VERY cheap there. The only down side is that you do need to be aware that South Africa has a pretty poor record in terms of violent crime but if you keep your wits about you and take reasonable precautions you shouldn't have too many problems.
Here's a link to a general info site for Cape Town for anyone that's interested.
http://capetowntravel.com
At the end of my week I took an internal flight up to Jo'burg to catch my flight to Perth Western Australia.
Perth was again a reasonable flight (8.5 hours) and I arrived quite early in the morning again, I took a taxi to my hotel http://www.comoapartments.com.au These were a great choice, the couple owning and running the apartments were fantastic and although the apartment I was in did need a little updating ( something that was being done to other apartments while I was there) they were clean comfortable and generally a fine place to stay.
Perth itself has a very good public transport system and the hotel was a short ( 100 yards) walk to the bus stops that dropped you into Perth city centre in one direction and Freemantle port and town in the other. It was about 15-20 minutes ride to either destination.
I caught two games of rugby here Englands games against Georgia ( country that was formerly part of Russia as opposed to the US state) and South Africa. England won both games reasonably comfortably. There were several beers had, the South Africans took their lose fairly well although they seemed to get tired and emotional by midnight, so I spent several more hours serching the bars and clubs of Perth for a few more South Africans to commisserate 
.
Other things in Perth were a couple of games of golf, a very good wine trip on a river boat up the Swan river. Met a few other England rugby fans on the trip and after a day of slurping we decided to have a couple of pints ( too water down the wine) in the pub on the water front. I also went out on a Whalewatching cruise, we did see some whales (Southern Right whales) but it was a little way away, still very exciting. A highlight of Perth was some of the animal parks in the area I thought the best of these was Cohunu park, where I had my photo taken cuddling a Koala and made friends with a number of kangeroos and wallabys . http://www.cohunu.com.au .
I really liked Perth, there are some great restaurants in the town ( and Freemantle) . Western Australia ( W.A.) is a HUGE AREA and there are many interesting things to do and see, this is another must return destination. I'd like to spend at least a month in Western Australia, probably my favourite place in Australia. Here's a link that has some information on W.A.
http://www.westernaustralia.net/
Next stop Melbourne and the Samoans
The Journey Over With the benefit of hindsight, given that I wasn't going to be getting paid for a while, turning down the offer of £200 cash or £400 in BA vouchers to take a later flight via Jo'burg instead of my booked direct flight to Cape Town was one that I should have accepted. But I was looking forward to getting away and they caught me unawares LOL. Anyway BA was a decent flight down ( about 10 hours) and I arrived reasonably fresh early in the morning. Taxi from the airport was easy enough to organise and pretty cheap by UK standards at about £25 to the centre of Cape Town itself from the airport.
I was staying at the house that my mum's S.O. owns there and it took me a while to unlock the various gates and numerous locks on the door. The vasr array of grills, locks, alarms and security devices bring it home very quickly that even in Cape Town ( one of South Africa's "safer" cities) security is an omnipresent factor. I had a wander around the house, which was very nice, it had a nice little coutyard with a jacuzzi and stairs up to a roof terrace that had magnificent veiws over Table Mountain and "Lion's Head" another mountain that over looks Cape Town. I'd been warned that if you get good weather GO UP TABLE MOUNTAIN because it's only about 2 days in 7 that you get clear views from the top of Table Mountain ( and oh my are they spectacular). With this in mind I order a "Ricky cab" which is a cheap way of getting round Cape Town, you share the back of what's basically a covered pick up truck with anyone that's going to your destination. It means you sometimes get a bit of a tour, but they're cheap and a good way to meet fellow travellers. It's only a short distance to the cable car station from central Cape town and cost about £1.50 for the journey. I can't remember the cost of the cable car, but it wasn't too much. http://www.worldisround.com/articles/25921/photo1.html ( there are a number of good photos following this one, click next to view them)
At the top you have a choice of three basic "walks" that are laid out in loops and easy to follow. A very short basic over look takes about 20 minutes, the middle course takes about 2 hours at a brisk walk ( I did this one but took my time) and finally a long trek to the high point of the mountain takes about 4-5 jours and you need to be in good shape to take this on. The weather can change quickly here and you do not want to be stuck out a long way from the cable car station when it gets windy or cold. Take warm clothes up here because even on a nice sunny, windless springday it was a bit chilly. This is a MUST DO for anyone going to Cape Town, the veiws are stunning, there is an interesting ecosphere on top of the mountain and it really is VERY FLAT LOL.
Over the next few days I had a couple of rounds of golf and I took a couple of full-day tours with Hylton Tours. I was very impressed with the guides of this company and I thought they were worth the slightly higher fees they charge. I took the full day winelands tour ( http://www.hyltonross.co.za/winelands-tours.html ) to Stellenbosch, Franschook and Paarl. I particularly enjoyed the winetasting
. The other tour I did was the Cape point tour ( http://www.hyltonross.co.za/cape-point-tour.html ) I liked the penguin colony visit where they have closed off an area of the beach from people so the penguins can get to their burroughs unhindered. It's been well done with wooden walkways so the penguins can walk under the walkway and the visitors get a great close up view of them waddling through. Another high point was the visit to Kirstenbosch botanical gardens, this is a stunning park and if you're interested in flowers, plants etc well worth renting a car and spending at least an afternoon there ( IMHo you could take close on a day at a relaxed pace here) http://www.nbi.ac.za/frames/kirstfram.htm I also met up with a couple of my mom's friends who took me out for a couple of beers
, this turned out to be a pretty long night and I had a slight headache the following day . I really enjoyed Cape Town, it's certainly a place I plan to return to. Some great scenery, food and drink is VERY cheap there. The only down side is that you do need to be aware that South Africa has a pretty poor record in terms of violent crime but if you keep your wits about you and take reasonable precautions you shouldn't have too many problems.
Here's a link to a general info site for Cape Town for anyone that's interested.
http://capetowntravel.com
At the end of my week I took an internal flight up to Jo'burg to catch my flight to Perth Western Australia.
Perth was again a reasonable flight (8.5 hours) and I arrived quite early in the morning again, I took a taxi to my hotel http://www.comoapartments.com.au These were a great choice, the couple owning and running the apartments were fantastic and although the apartment I was in did need a little updating ( something that was being done to other apartments while I was there) they were clean comfortable and generally a fine place to stay.
Perth itself has a very good public transport system and the hotel was a short ( 100 yards) walk to the bus stops that dropped you into Perth city centre in one direction and Freemantle port and town in the other. It was about 15-20 minutes ride to either destination.
I caught two games of rugby here Englands games against Georgia ( country that was formerly part of Russia as opposed to the US state
) and South Africa. England won both games reasonably comfortably. There were several beers had, the South Africans took their lose fairly well although they seemed to get tired and emotional by midnight, so I spent several more hours serching the bars and clubs of Perth for a few more South Africans to commisserate . Other things in Perth were a couple of games of golf, a very good wine trip on a river boat up the Swan river. Met a few other England rugby fans on the trip and after a day of slurping we decided to have a couple of pints ( too water down the wine
) in the pub on the water front. I also went out on a Whalewatching cruise, we did see some whales (Southern Right whales) but it was a little way away, still very exciting. A highlight of Perth was some of the animal parks in the area I thought the best of these was Cohunu park, where I had my photo taken cuddling a Koala and made friends with a number of kangeroos and wallabys . http://www.cohunu.com.au . I really liked Perth, there are some great restaurants in the town ( and Freemantle) . Western Australia ( W.A.) is a HUGE AREA and there are many interesting things to do and see, this is another must return destination. I'd like to spend at least a month in Western Australia, probably my favourite place in Australia. Here's a link that has some information on W.A.
http://www.westernaustralia.net/
Next stop Melbourne and the Samoans
