South Africa

Well it was labelled as a candelabra lily, but I don't have one of those apps on my phone where you can get the information from your picture. I suspect they  just used a local name though it's quite appropriate I think.

And so to Cape Town. We've had a long day travelling today  through some awesome mountain scenery - the Garden route has the ocean on the southern side and the mountains to the north.

We stopped en route at the town of Oudtshoorn - known as the ostrich capital of the world! There are several commercial ostrich farms in the area where the birds are bred for their meat, feathers and skin (their skin,  once tanned, is apparently second in durability only to kangaroo skin.) The oldest recorded ostrich lived to the age of 82!

We just called in at a show farm where you can "interact" with the ostriches and I can say that they have quite a vicious peck.

Still, it's been some years since I have a pair of young birds draped around me eating out of my hands like this! 

The first dull day we've had some far and, unfortunately, it was the day we had planned to take the cable car ride up Table Mountain. But the mountain was shrouded in cloud (they call it the Tablecloth) so instead we went to a lower peak to watch the paragliders taking off - brave folk and quite a few youngsters taking part in tandem flights. We had pretty good views down over the city, including the waterfront and the stadium built for the 2014 World Cup and also out to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned - I'd imagined it to be a much bigger island. We are hoping to go out on a tour on Monday.

We had a trip into history today - a tour of Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent18 years imprisoned. The tours are conducted by former prisoners who speak eloquently of their struggle against the apartheid system, imprisonment and the barbaric conditions they had to endure.  There is still clearly a lot of anger in them. It is almost impossible to imagine how it must have been, confined to a cell barely 8ft by 8ft for all but 30 minutes a day. The punishments sounded horrific - some were set to work in this limestone quarry under the scorching sun for 6 hours a day, other had dogs set upon them overnight. There is little indication of Mandela's cell, other than a folded blanket in one corner and a table and tin cup against one wall.

The country has come so far over the past 30 years or so, but there is still much to be achieved - outside nearly every town we've visited there have been "informal settlements" with hundreds upon hundreds of corrugated iron shacks, such poor conditions compared to the wealth in the cities.

Great excitement amongst 50% of the moulesy group this morning when we realised we were sharing the hotel with the Australian cricket team. I was "advised" (by Mrs M, obviously) not to try to sit with them at breakfast - "they don't want a little fat English bloke on their table". How rude - I'm not that little! 

Not the absolute highlight, but one has to take one's chances when they come - one of these is a world class Australian international cricketer and the other is a "little fat English bloke! "

We're safely back home again now. After 30° temperatures at Table Mountain yesterday you can imagine the reaction when the captain announced we were landing at Heathrow where the temperature was 2°!