It was a misty morning and the scent of the sea air was still hanging heavy over the city, when Sally arrived to collect me from my hotel for my first visit to Cape Point Nature Reserve.

Chapman’s Peak had left me breathless as we travelled over this spectacular drive. As I turned around and saw the mountain bikes strapped on the back of the vehicle, I had a daunting feeling wash over me, this is going to be a day full of adventure.

The shipwreck trail was the first part of the adventure. An easy hike through this harsh landscape of strange rock shapes, as if some one had made carvings out of this Table Mountain Sandstone.

I was just beginning to wonder if anything could survive here, when we heard a troop of baboons barking in the distance. Sally explained to us how they adapted to eating seafood and collect muscles off the rocks at low tide.

Suddenly we came upon a viewpoint overlooking the shipwrecks stranded on the beach and watched a herd of forty eland grazing. The bulls seemed to be guarding the herd like sentinels, while the young where flocking in the nursery. I felt like a “strandloper” (late stone age man that existed in these parts) while walking back along the beach. The rusty hulls of shipwrecks are definitely testimony of the name “Cape of Storms” that the Portuguese first gave it.

After a delicious picnic lunch of homemade farm bread and snoek pate, fresh fruit and cheeses, it was time for pedalling. The mountain bike ride took us on the only off-road through the reserve! The cogs grinded along the gravel track, while watching long tailed sugarbirds dip their long beaks into sun-bursting proteas and a rich smell of honey bush wafted through the air.

The Cape Floral Kingdom, the smallest but richest of the world's six floral kingdoms comprises a treasure trove of 1 100 species of indigenous plants, of which a number are endemic (occur naturally nowhere else on earth). Eventually the gravel changed to tarmac and we made our last climb round to reach Cape Point and we got a view of the lighthouse.
Dassies (Rock Hyrax) lazed in the afternoon sun, as I made the final hike up to the Cape of Good Hope, the south westerly most point in Africa. The view looking back on Diaz beach and the Cape Lighthouses was spectacular.

Sundowners on the beach was a perfect ending to a day filled with adventure and I felt privileged at having been part of such an unspoilt area.