Animal Day

We've been settled in our little apartment in Sunny Cove, outside Cape Town, South Africa, for about two weeks now, with one more week to go.

The apartment is right across the street from the water, and the ocean here is full of marine life.

View from our apartment

We have seen whales from around (or less than) 100m, swimming and playing right outside our place.

Yesterday and the day before were really active days, we saw a big pod of dolphins yesterday, and five whales the day before.

Breakfasting with whales..

Lots of whales!

Big pod of dolphins

In fact, yesterday was animal day - we saw the dolphins in the morning, then the local seal made a brief appearance, a couple of more distant whales were around and we took a trip to see the penguins.

Near here, there is a penguin preservation area at Boulders beach, and we borrowed our hosts' bicycles and rode there.

The distance each way was 8km! Good thing we had the bikes!

Boulders Beach, not just a clever name..

The penguins are so cute - did you know a group of penguins on land is a "waddle"? And at sea, they are a "raft".

After visiting the penguins for a couple of hours, it was time to face that bike ride home... did we mention it was 8 kilometres??!!