Cape Point Ride

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droffarc

Race Dog
Joined
Jan 27, 2006
Messages
1,368
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113
Location
Cape Toon - TransAlp XL650V 2004
Bike
Honda NC750X
Not everyone can use a map! I would not have thought this because I personally cannot resist pouring over a map for hours. I find a good map irresistible, and even a badly drawn map can be interesting.
From a young age I was a boy cub and then a scout and there we learned about maps and compasses and compass bearings. In the navy we used maps and part of the diving course was taking compass bearings and swimming underwater to a target. Hell, even if I say so myself, I am pretty good at taking bearings and arriving at the target. Even finding a person’s home with only his name and phone number is relatively easy. You just pick up a phone book for the address, the map book index to get the co-ordinates, the map to get the general lay of the land, the vehicle to go and there you are – simple as reading a map! Imagine my consternation when I recently gave a detailed map and instructions on how to find a place to a colleague and she was unable to find the place. I am convinced now that even if I took photos of key places on the route she still would not find it! Some people just are that way. It is common knowledge that a man will not ask for directions when looking for a place – in my case the reason is because all too often the directions are wrong. Ever stopped to ask a group where Elm street is only to get a different set of directions from each person in the group?
Using a map I had obtained from the chief director of surveys and mapping, map 3418AB & AD Cape Peninsula 1983 fifth edition, I went off in search of Klein Constantia. It was not too difficult to find it, especially since I already knew how to get there, but the trick was to get there using the map for guidance. The map itself was a little old and dilapidated, having been stuck up against my wall for several years but was still a beautiful map. The scale is 1:50 000 and has all sorts of fun things like a scale converter and a thingy that shows magnetic and true north and that contour lines are 20 meters. And best of all – it even has an illustration that shows how to fold it again after use – nifty huh?
Well, to make a short story even shorter, I found it without any trouble – and you were kind of hoping I was going to say that I got horribly lost! Huh?
While in that area I decided, mainly because of the map covering that part of the Cape Peninsula, to go up Ou Kaapse weg, past Kommetjie and on to Cape Point and then return via Simonstown, Vishoek and so on – so off I went up ou Kaapse. It was a nice ride even though I was not appropriately dressed – the sun was beginning to toast me.
By the time I got to Camel Rock I was warm indeed so I stopped for a wee bit, just to kick around some wet stones. Then proceeded further, past the tourist magnet where they sell rocks and tree stumps shaped like people and stopped again at the sign saying M4 Simonstown straight and Cape point turn right.
I was not going to Cape Point itself – leave that for the touristy types and the Chagma Baboons. There are apparently two tribes of these baboons one of which was threatened by starvation a while back because there were very few tourists to feed them! They apparently had developed a taste for fast foods! So I went on round to Smitswinkel bay and stopped again around Partridge point for some more photos of scenic beauty. Then on to Castle rocks, Rumbly Bay, Miller’s Point and Stony Beach before entering Simonstown where I had spent two years of my life as an able seaman and a diver. I stopped at the building that used to be the Post Office, which now among other things houses the post office and other touristy shops n things. There I took a walk along the pier and peered at the Simonsberg New Entry Training School. Took me a few months to realize that when they spoke of NETS what they were referring to Duh!
At the pier they have boats – none of which seemed to be in use at that time –and one can hire sea kayaks – not that I could see any at that time. I looked at the Salty Sea Dog restaurant which not too long ago had been a privately run diving school run by Chief Pottie and a certain Harry of the Dilley persuasion. Previously the building had been a public toilet if memory serves me. The school had use of the MV Zest. I remember looking at it when years earlier I was at the Navy Diving School and loving the sound of it’s engines when occasionally it was started. There was no sign of the Zest now – wonder what became of it.
I watched a family of Egyptian geese with little ones paddling in the calm water. From there I went past Glen cairn to Fish Hoek and Kalk bay and then up over Boyes Drive. Here above Muizenberg, with geese on my mind I stopped for a gander at the splendor of False Bay with its long white beach to Strandfontein and beyond.
From there I could also see Seal Island in the distance. This apparently is the only place in the world where great white sharks breach catching seals.

 
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