The Cactus Trip Diaries

Today is our last full day in South Africa. The last few days of any trip are always flat. Without having a camera to focus on some succulents plants, the mind started to focus on getting home more than ever. Eunice needed to go to the post office in the middle of Cape Town. I did not really want to go along, but as we needed to return our rental car in one piece I agreed to go along – driving in a strange town, especially (for Eunice) on the ‘wrong’ side of the road can be much easier with somebody reading the SatNav and giving instructions.

We’d underestimated the hassle of parking in any big town but got back with time to spare for lunch. Cliff and David had the car for the afternoon, to take a look around the waterfront and to get the car thoroughly cleaned inside and out to smooth over the hand back procedures tomorrow. Eunice persuaded me to take the cable car ride to the top of Table Mountain while I was torn between that and starting on the task of writing up these diaries. In recent years I had always done at the end of each day in the full knowledge that if it’s left to later the task may be too large to accomplish and may never be completed. For this 62 day trip, the task was significant and complicated by my lack of knowledge of the plants.

I’m glad that I decided to go along with Eunice – she ‘bribed’ me by offering to pay my admission charge that included the cable car ride, but I treated her to coffee and cake at the top which balanced the costs to some extend. As it is likely to be my first and last time in Cape Town, it would have been silly not to grab this opportunity.!

So here are some images from our last stop (S2832) of this ‘trip of a life time’ (yes, another one, I hear you say!)

S2832 – Cable car ride up Table Mountain

S2832 – Table Mountain clouds

S2832 – View from Table Mountain

S2832 – View over Cape Town from Table Mountain

S2832 – 9 weeks of growth on my chin

The last picture is a reminder of how a 9 week long trip can age you! I look like an old man! (What do you mean? ‘Look like’! I hear David say.

We were fortunate to have seen these views on such a clear day. Most days, the mountain had a ‘Table cloth’ over the top, which would have provided quite different views. But then looking back over the trip in writing these Diaries I realise how fortunate we were on so many occasions. And how much I’ve learned about a huge group of plants that I knew very little about before we left. As always, the more you learn, the more questions it raises.

With the Diary project behind me, I can start on the next project: preparing talks to share this adventure with more people at some 30+ talks to BCSS branches this year.

And to start looking at plans for the next trip: Chile 2013 in Autumn.