Day 115 Sunday May 5 Epilogue

by Henry

Epilogue (or “the day after”):

At their leisure, riders gradually filtered down to the hotel’s breakfast buffet, and we all marveled at not having to endure another day of oatmeal. We began to say our final goodbyes to those departing today, and those staying in Cape Town made plans to explore the area.

 

View from the street outside our hotel after breakfast with Table Mountain partially obscured by clouds.

We wished to celebrate with a modest victory lap. The Cape of Good Hope was an intriguing destination, However, riding there all the way from our hotel would constitute a 160 km round-trip, requiring more energy than we had in reserve. 

We decided to ride a smaller loop on the Cape Peninsula, and transported our bikes via Uber to Fish Hoek. We started our ride down the west side of the peninsula. The winds were very strong coming off the Atlantic, and the huge rolling waves not surprisingly had attracted surfers.

 

As we crossed over to the east side of the Peninsula, we came upon the entry to Table Mountain National Park. Riding all the way further south to the Cape would add another 30 km round-trip, with a tremendous headwind on the way back. We opted to turn back north here and return to Fish Hoek.

Views of False Bay as we rode along the east side of the Cape Peninsula.

We paused for a late lunch of fish and chips, and calamari.

 

We stopped at Boulder Beach, famous for  harboring the only species of African penguin. Overfishing in the last century nearly caused them to become extinct, but with the advent of careful fishing restrictions, the penguin population has rebounded, but they are still endangered.

Their nests are built directly in the sand.

 

An interesting physiological feature is that they have glands behind their eyes to excrete excess salt, since they ingest seawater when swallowing sardines and squid.

We had completed a 55 km bike excursion once back in Fish Hoek. An Uber driver transported us back to our hotel. Very sad, but that concluded our final bicycle ride in Africa.

After cleaning up at the hotel, we strolled to a nearby Turkish restaurant for dinner. We would begin the process of boxing our bicycles later tonight.