This morning we said goodbye to the lovely people at Cape Cadogan hotel and headed for our two night stay in Hermanus; but not before we signed the guestbook and thanked them for our lovely start to our honeymoon. It was cool to look through the book and see all of the people from all over the world that have honeymooned here.
Hermanus is the whale watching capital of South Africa and one of my 1,000 Places to See Before You Die . We took the winding mountainous road from Capetown to Hermanus known as the Whale Coast Route. We took our sweet time on this drive; stopping often to take photos, look for whales, and take pictures of funny signs?
We planned a stop at Betty’s Bay so we could see more African Penquins. It was super windy; Bret actually had to hold onto me so I did not blow away. But a little wind is not going to stop me from seeing my penquins and this maybe our last opportunity to see the African Penquin so I am going to stay as long as I can.
After the penguin viewing we stopped to eat at a small Greek restaurant called The Whaling Station. The whale coast route gets more beautiful the longer we drive, ending for us at Hermanus. Once we got to Hermanus we checked into our home for the next 2 nights, Schulphoek (Shell Corner). Everyone is so friendly here, especially our Hostess Petro. She told us it was too windy to whale watch from a boat or sea kayak today but she would get us on the list for tomorrow. She said that instead, we can go to “downtown” Hermanus and whale watch from land. We were skeptical but we were able to whale, dolphin and seal watched from the cliffs along the 7 mile cliff walk. I could not believe how close they were to us, Bret and I actually named our favorite whale “Nimrod” because he would only do cool things when I was not looking. It was so relaxing, sitting on those cliffs for hours, in one of the most wonderful places in the world. We are not taking anything for granted and know how blessed we are to be here.
When it got dark we headed back for our dinner at the guest house. Before dinner we were able to talk to other people staying there from all over the world. They all agreed that Americans do not like to travel, not us, but we agreed that we know quite a few people that do not travel alot. At about this time Petro took us to their 4,000 bottle wine cellar to select a bottle of wine to enjoy with dinner. The hotel set up a romantic dinner in the corner of the dining room for us honeymooners and everyone else ate together in the dining room. At one point, I guess, I was talking REALLY fast and Petro came over all excited thinking I was speaking Afrikaans (native language originating from Dutch). It was pretty hilarious and maybe I need to slow it down a little bit. We had a lovely dinner overlooking the ocean, eating steak and enjoying great wine. It keeps getting better everyday….
