A slow day on the Cape Peninsula

I keep one day on the Fynbos route with nothing fixed, and this is roughly how it goes when the weather is kind.

Seven o’clock, the contour path

Up from Tafelberg Road while the city is still in shadow. Sugarbirds on the proteas, the first cable car going up empty. We walk for an hour and turn back before it gets busy. Breakfast is at a café on Kloof Street that has not changed its menu in a decade, which is the point.

Noon, the penguins

Boulders Beach at low tide, when the colony spreads out onto the sand. The water is eleven degrees. I go in. Most of the group goes in up to their knees, which counts.

Four o’clock, Chapman’s Peak

The drive home along the cliff road, pulling over at every second bend. Dinner is in Bo-Kaap with a cook I have known for years. Nobody has looked at a phone since breakfast.