Mother City Adventures - A gorgeous day out exploring our beautiful CAPE TOWN... tourist style!

It is not every day that you get to travel around your home town doing all the "touristy things" and it is also not every day that you get to stand on top of one( the Seven Wonders of the World - Table Mountain! Yes, it is on our doorstep but aside from a free annual visit on your birthday, as a Capetonian it is just not something we do very often because it is ludicrously expensive when you are paying in South African rands rather than an 18 to 1 pound ratio lol.

However, Dave's sister is down from the UK and she wanted to do a whole lot of touristy things so it seemed the perfect opportunity to jump on board - especially considering the fact that Jude has never been.

We headed up to the foot of the mountain to join the queue - and oh boy, was there a queue! I was actually blown away by the amount of people there! We thought we would be sitting in the queue until next week lol but it actually moved relatively quickly and the staff were exceptionally organised. The cable cars are also super quick so it really helped with speeding up the process... if it had still been the old cable car, we would no doubt still be waiting in line now! lol! Here is a pic of the old cable car...

and this, is what the new ones look like...

Although the trip up and down the mountain is really quick, it is still an amazing experience with the open air windows and rotating floor so you really do get a full 360 degree experience along the way!

Arriving at the top and stepping out onto the mountain is absolutely awe inspiring! You truly do feel like you are on top of the world and the views of our beautiful peninsula are simply breathtaking - in fact... NONE of my photos do the scenery ANY justice compared to seeing it with your own two eyes!

There is a path on which you can literally walk around the edge of the entire mountain top, so you get to see every single inch of our beautiful mother city, so that was what we headed off to do! The walk took about 45 minutes and cost me a few minor heart attacks as I watched Jude hopping from rock to rock always just that little too close to the edge for my liking lol. There are railings but I was surprised to see how many people disregarded them and went out onto the sheer rock edges... you definitely wouldn't catch me doing that lol.

Over the years, I have heard many people speak of how Cape Town is one of the most powerful energy centres of the world because of Table Mountain and I have to say that there is a very strong "presence" of spiritual enrichment that overcomes you when you are there. It is all consuming really.

Throughout the walk around the mountain there is plenty of beautiful fauna and flora to be seen too which adds a whole new dimension to the experience.

At the end of the round trip walk you are greeted with the restaurant which is deli style - so you walk through and collect whatever eats and drinks you want along the way and then you can go and enjoy a glass of wine and a bite to eat whilst soaking up the sun and the views - it really is a whole day experience, but we had other plans on the agenda so we grabbed a very quick bite to eat and then decided to get into the queue for the trip down.

Once we reached the bottom, we headed off to the V&A Waterfront to visit the Aquarium. I had only been once before and despite Jude having been several times, it is the sort of underwater experience that never gets old!

We took a nice slow gander around the aquarium - quite frankly, I think we were all grateful to experience the aircon inside after being scorched in the sun on top of the mountain lol!

The fascinating creatures to be seen are endless really but I have to admit that my two favourites were the adorable little seahorses and then obviously seeing the great white sharks!

It really is a fantastic place for kids to visit as they have so many live exhibitions, interactive activities and loads of other fun and equally educational stuff for them to get involved in.

Having come from the top of the mountain, peering down over endless ocean it was quite something to see the massive wall to wall tanks as it gave you a real perspective of the magnitude and magnificence of the ocean and all the life within it.

The first large tank that we stopped at was simply beautiful and I was so captivated by this enormous turtle who was almost "tame" in his/her behaviour.

Next off, we went to go and visit the penquins - also one of my favourites! They are truly the most adorable little birds and it was like stepping into the "happy Feet" movie lol!

After that was my absolute favourite part... the predators!!! And I will say that despite the glass between us, it was still really freaky being so close to these beasts!

That was pretty much a wrap for the aquarium, and I think it is safe to say that all of our legs were pretty much dead by that time, so we took a quick walk through the market as we headed off to plant our rear ends down at Quay Four and enjoy some lunch.

Although we were all dog tired by the end of the day - I must say that it really was the most spectacular day!