capetownvisit

All about CAPE TOWN, South Africa

Quick Links - just click the topic you are interested in from the list below.

Apartheid	Cape Town	Cape of Good Hope	Gardens & Wildlife
Robben Island District 6	City Tour	Tour of the Cape Peninsula	Kirstenbosch Botanic Garden Green Point Urban Park Eco work at Westcott
Children's Questions for Mr Rose

On Thursday, May 3rd, 2012, at 9pm, Mr Rose set off to Cape Town from Manchester airport with Mr Brown from Oldfield Primary. They changed planes at Dubai (at 3:30 in the morning, GMT), and arrived in Cape Town at 3:30 pm (GMT) on Friday, May 4th. Their total journey time was 18.5 hours!

The visit was arranged via Afritwin, and was wholly funded by a British Council grant.

Friday, May 4th

Journey to Cape Town

In-flight info, including a view from the front of the plane up the runway at Manchester airport.	Sunset over the UK.
We change planes at Dubai.	Mr Brown in front of the massive engine of the plane.
The plane in front about to take off from Dubia (the view is from a camera mounted in the front of our plane!)	The route from Dubai heading south along the east African coast.
High above the clouds!

Saturday, May 5th
Peninsula Tour

They DO have McDonalds in Cape Town!	Muizenberg, or Surfers’ Corner, on the southern beaches.

Fynbos (pronounced fane boss); the natural heathland vegetation that grows all along the Cape Peninsula.	Mr Brown buys a gift from a street seller in Simon's Town.

Mr Rose and some penguins at the Boulder Beach colony.	“I’m watching you, so don’t try anything funny.”

“Now, where did I leave my egg?”	Time for some sunbathing!
Read carefully!!	“I say, old chap, they don’t mean me, surely?!”

Mr Rose and Mr & Mrs Robertson at Cape Point, the tip of Africa.	HOW far away are we from home?!
The beach at Scarborough, on the western side of the peninsula.	The waves crash in, all the way from South America.
The sun setting over The Sentinel, a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast beneath Table Mountain.	A street seller making lovely bead work animals.

Sunday, May 6th
Cape Town and Table Mountain

The road into central Cape Town.	Statues of four famous South Africans.
Mr Brown and Mr Rose, with the football stadium behind.	Ruth Koopman and her family, our hosts for the sight-seeing tour.
High-rise Cape Town.	High rise Table Mountain
The view from the cable car on the way up.	Mr Rose at the top, with the Lion’s Head hill behind, and Robben Island in the distance.
The beach at Camps Bay, an exclusive resort area.	The shops and cafes at Camps Bay.
iPad at the beach.	Llandudno ( South Africa, not Wales!)

Monday, May 7th

Westcott Primary

A fantastic welcome assembly at Westcott.	The children sang our National Anthem beautifully, and also In an English Country Garden.
Miss Benjafield, the Afritwin co-ordinator at Westcott.	Mr Robertson, the Westcott principal, and a young helper.
Children from the youngest classes explained their gardening projects to Mr Rose.	Older children about to present their work.
Cody shows the design for an eco-greenhouse, made from old plastic bottles!	Beautifully presented research about the trees at Westcott school.

Kirstenbosch Gardens

One of the most famous gardens in the world, Kirstenbosch lies on the lower slopes of Table Mountain,
a stunning setting.

The garden only contains plants native to South Africa.

Click HERE to visit the official website.

Kirstenbosch Gardens
from Monty Don's Around the World in 80 Gardens (BBC)

(Watch to 9:55 - 7 minute excerpt)

Main entrance to the gardens	Mr Rose in the garden, wearing his Huntington T-shirt!
Beautiful plants and animals are everywhere	Succulents - plants that store water inside to help them live in very dry places
Amazing scenery	Mr Rose meets a tortoise
A protea, South Africa's most famous type of flower.	Our guide points out the Hottentot Mountains, beyond Cape Town to the east.

Walking above the garden, a different landscape can be seen.	Closer up, you can see that these are vineyards, growing grapes to make some famous South African wines (e.g. Buitenverwachting)

Tuesday, May 8th

Westcott Primary

Older children man the road-safety patrol (Scholar Patrol).	These grade 6 girls performed a song they had written for Mr Rose
Hard at work on a maths investigation into number patterns.	Designs for a bird feeder.
Questions for Mr Rose

Robben Island (Nelson Mandela's prison)


A display about Nelson Mandela at Westcott.	Nelson Mandela
The view from the ferry to Robben Island, back towards Cape Town.	The welcome sign on the island.
The limestone quarry where prisoners had to break up stones for 8 hours a day, often in blinding sunshine (which damaged their eyesight).	The pile of stones created by Nelson Mandela and other former inmates on a visit back to the quarry. This is a symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over the hardships they went through.
Inside the prison building.	A former inmate, Zozolulamile Madololo, is now one of the guides. He was imprisoned after the Soweto uprising,
The cell block where our guide was kept.	Nelson Mandela's cell.
Our guide with Mr Rose and Mr de Villiers from Westcott.	Table Mountain from Robben Island.
Sunset in Cape Town.	Marimba Vibrations playing at the Mama Africa restaurant that evening.

Wednesday, May 9th

District Six Museum

District 6 was an area of Cape Town where people from many different races lived together. In 1966 the government decided it would be an area for white people only, and the buildings there were all destroyed (except for a few churches). Many people, in South Africa and around the world, thought this was a terrible thing to do, and the area was never actually built on because of this. The District 6 Museum was created to make sure people do not forget this area of Cape Town, and to teach us lessons about apartheid (the laws that separated people because of the colour of their skin). You can visit the District 6 Museum website by clicking HERE. In 2010, when the football World Cup was held in South Africa, BBC Sport showed a video about District 6, featuring Joe Schaffers, who was our guide in the museum. You can see the video by clicking HERE.
District 6 before 1966 - full of people and life.	District 6 today - an empty landscape.
A model of District 6 as it was, before being demolished.	A huge, hand-painted map of the area forms the floor of the museum.
Our guide, Joe Schaffers, who lived in District 6 before it was destroyed.	Explaining about life in the district.
Mrs Koopman examining the map	Some familiar street names!
A sign from the time of Apartheid.	District 6 being destroyed.
Large banners help people remember the area.	Many of the street signs were saved by a worker who was told to get rid of them.

Green Point Urban Park

Green Point Urban Park was created near Cape Town's World Cup football stadium, and opened in 2011.
The park is found beneath Signal Hill (with Lion's Head hill in the background).	As well as giving Capetonians (people from Cape Town) a place to play games and walk, there are several gardens in the park.
A stream, flowing naturally from a spring in the nearby hills, provides water.	The water from the mountain springs was one of the main reasons people first settled in the Cape Town area.
Many different peoples have lived in the area - the San (who were hunters), then the Khoikhoi (herdsmen), then the European settlers.	Herbs used by the Khoikhoi to make drinks are still used today, some all over the world (for example, the famous rooibos tea)
Making a Khoikhoi domed hut - stage 1.	Making a Khoikhoi domed hut - stage 2.
Mr Rose in an almost-complete hut.
A praying mantis, made in the bead work style.	A map of the biodiversity garden, which explains the importance of the wide range of plants and animals that are found in the Cape Region.

Green Point lighthouse, first lit in 1824 (the oldest in South Africa).

Questions the children asked Mr Rose to find the answers to

Question

Answer

How high is Table Mountain?

1088m - the highest point is Maclear's Beacon. Table Mountain is higher than the highest mountain in England (Scafell Pike in the Lake District, 978m).

Click HERE for a virtual tour on the cable car to the top.

The Beacon on Table Mountain

Maclear's Beacon - a cairn of stones

How many children are there in Westcott school?

440 - they have two classes for every year at Westcott, and children go to the school from the age of 5 to 13.

How many children are there in the classes?

Roughly the same as here - 30 or less

Mr Robertson talking to a class

What is the food like there?

Delicious! They eat food from all over the world, like we do (I ate a VERY hot chilli pizza). My favourites were local dishes, though - a fantastic seafood curry at The Two Oceans at Cape Point, and a superb bobotie (spiced minced meat baked with an egg-based topping) at the Buffelsfontein Game Reserve.

	Bobotie - delicious!
	The crocodile kebab at Mama Africa's was really good too! (that's peanut sauce in the bowl)

Is the landscape sandy?

The land is very sandy, because much of the soil is made from the weathered sandstone rocks of Table Mountain. This makes it quite hard to grow vegetables - so at Westcott they had to dig a deep hole and fill it with newspaper, fruit peelings and compost to make a vegetable plot!

What type of frogs do they have?

There are 62 different types of frog in the Cape region. Of these, 29 are ONLY found here, and nowhere else on Earth. Some are very rare - the Table Mountain ghost frog lives only in the mountain's fast-flowing rocky streams.

Table Mountain Ghost Frog - endangered!

Why is the city called Cape Town?

Cape Town is named after the Cape of Good Hope, the rocky headland nearby that juts out into the South Atlantic (it was known first as the Cape of Storms). The town grew from a settlement established to supply fuel, water and fresh fruit and vegetables to ships on their way to the Far East for spices.

The Cape

Will you see any slums on the journey?

I did see some slums, some poor areas and some very rich areas. The worst housing is in what the South Africans call 'informal settlements', and is made from scrap materials (often plywood, corrugated metal and plastic).

What is the lowest recorded temperature ever in Cape Town?

This was -2.2 degrees C, and the highest was 41.3. The average temperature in Cape Town is 17 degrees C (much higher than in the UK).

What kind of fund-raising do they do at Westcott School?

Lots! Every Friday the children come to school dressed in their own clothes to raise money for the school (they call it 'civvies' day, not 'non-uniform' day). They also raise money for lots of charities - the week after we left there was to be a fun-run.

Fun Run on the noticeboard.