Sunday, February 16, 2014

Heat Wave

Holy moly...it's getting hot over here!  The past few days have been in the 90s...and Africa 90's feel a lot more intense than California 90's!  We woke up early yesterday morning to clear skies and little wind so it was time for an assault on Table Mountain.  One can get up to table mountain by either hiking it or taking a cable car.  One takes most of the day...the other a couple of minutes.  We chose the cable car.  It's a cool way to climb 1000 meters!  The car goes almost straight up and the inside rotates so you're always getting a different view.  Table mountain looks long and flat from the ground, but once we got up there it's pretty evident that there was some serious lava flowing when this thing was formed.  It's like someone squeezed the lava through their fingers and left tons of overflowing rock formations on the surface.  Almost looks like another planet up there.  The views from the top are amazing on a clear day!  After being up there for about an hour it became obvious that my kids and Dave were becoming zombies.  The past week of non stop sight seeing and travel had finally taken it's toll on our family.  I'm pretty proud of them for hanging on as long as they did...especially Dave who was still feeling the affects of "intestinal distress."  We had other plans for that afternoon but instead decided to go back to our place and take a much needed rest!

The kids have been waking up with nightmares about returning to school and not having any of their homework done.  It's kinda funny because I don't see them worrying about it during the day:)  They all got a bunch of homework done that evening so we decided to go out and visit a cool little beach we passed on the way back from Cape Town.  The name is Llandadno, I think?  We could see the beach from the top of a cliff and there's only one little road down to it.  That road twists and turns through beautiful beach homes...expensive beach homes!  It turned out to be a gorgeous night and the kids made us promise to come back the next day.

That leads us to Sunday.  We had our own little church service then off to the beach.  Lladadno was extra beautiful today because it was so stinking hot!!!  It was either sit on a beach or be miserable!  So we sat.  Like I mentioned earlier, the water is FREEZING...but today it was almost refreshing.  On most of the beaches here they have people who help you find a parking spot and rent chairs and umbrellas. Sometimes there are even dudes walking around with coolers full of cold drinks and ice cream.  It's pretty awesome.  However, it always seems like no matter how hard I try to reapply sunscreen, it's never enough.  Jake is a mess!  Brooke is crispy!  Nobody was left unscathed today from the sun.  Heaven help us sleep tonite and peel sooner than later.

We headed back to the waterfront for a sunset cruise this evening.  The weather was perfect and it was a fun way to say goodbye to the sun...thankfully it's supposed to cool down tomorrow.  We hear from  JP (Dave's companion from his mission who lives in Durban) that we are in for some serious heat when we go to the other side of the country on Tuesday.  This information scares me.

Sorry that there are no baboons in this post to make you all laugh...JP promises that baboons are plentiful and terrifying where he lives so we are sure to have more interesting and humorous experiences with those evil beasts in the near future!  Hope you are all staying warm at home...just know that we are missing all of you and wishing you were here with us!  Tot siens!  Robynn

If I look a little stoned in this pic it's because I had to down a couple of  dramamine before I got on this pleasure cruise.  Lucky I did cuz the boat was a rockin!

Dave and I with the Twelve Apostles in the back drop.  We almost look too relaxed in this pic...like we're not  sharing this romantic trip with our four children...ha!

More 12 Apostles....Dave and I keep trying to count them...there seems to be 14 ?

Jake...loving the trip!  Said he went up top  of the boat with all the boozers by himself and  the whole place went quiet so he came back down.  LOL!!!  He's a mood killer!

Brooke with  Table Mountain in backdrop (it only looks flat).

Llandando Beach at sunset...Ben 's photobombing skills are legendary!

Dave and kids playing on the beach...what a good dad!

Indian ocean on the left...Atlantic on the right...stand up...sit down...fight fight fight!  Can you see the glistening sweat on my neck?  Gross!!!

Capetown in the background.

Kids and crazy rock formations

Notice how the cables look almost straight up and down...barf!  Lions Head peak and Robben island in the background.

I forgot to mention that there's one more way to get off the mountain...Abesailing.  Maybe next time! HA!

5 comments:

  1. Those mountains are gorgeous, and we know mountains! You all have so much stamina! Jake is such a righteous dude he took the life right out of that rooftop Sabbath-day party.

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  2. Thank you for entertaining the Jeppson family with your wonderfully written and hilarious posts. We especially loved the baboon post! Thanks Ben. So happy you are having a wonderful time! Loomis is not the same without the Walter family! Can't wait to read more:)

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  3. If this boat's a rockin... So awesome!

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  4. Beautiful!!! Love Dave's old man hat. So jealous of your trip!

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  5. Those cables scare me more than the baboon story- were heights or should I say fear of heights, a problem?

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