Cape Town: a million; Joburg: none

As a born-and-bred Joburgian, I often find myself defending it on grounds that I have family there, that it’s really ‘so much better when you know it’ and honestly, it’s not that bad. All of this is true, but sometimes Cape Town just rises up to the challenge and blows all of those other arguments out of the water.


For example, my family is here. It gets better every time you get to know it more. And it’s really all that good.

I picked the boy up from the airport yesterday. We drove out of Shanty town and along the beachfront in Mouille Point, where we stopped at a little seaside café.La Vie Restaurant We ordered fresh ocean mussels drowned in garlic, butter and white wine sauce. Yes, I know you can get mussels in Joburg, but you sure as hell can’t smell them on the beach as you eat them.

After smashing down a plateful of pizza, we thought we needed something to take our minds off our full bellies. We moseyed along down to the Waterfront for a ‘look’ at the boat cruises. It ended up being a haggling experience with the boat promoters swooping down on us like seagulls when you are eating fish and chips. In the end we settled on the classic ‘Spirit of Victoria’. The boat left at 4pm on calm-as-a-lake seas as we sailed out of the harbour. The spirit is a beautiful old sailing ship, complete with mast and high sails. We were lucky enough to sit right up in front and feel the wind (created only by the movement of the boat, my physicist informs me) in our hair.

Our glasses were kept full to the brim of pretty pink champagne as head sailed towards Camps Bay. The water was so still we were able to see the hundreds of jellyfish and bluebottles floating past us. Unable to resist, the boy felt the need to try and scare me and ended up only making me spill a whole glass of champagne over my brand new white dress. Unimpressed, I sulked for about 5 minutes until we spotted dolphins.

Now, righteous female anger at juvenile male pranks is an all-important binding factor in any healthy relationship, but I am only human and there were DOLPHINS! The excited little girl inside me whose favourite colour is purple and who collects puppy-in-my-pockets leapt up and insisted we circle the boat around the dolphins to see more.

As if that wasn’t enough, we were able to see a whale playfully turning over and over onto her side, waving her flipper in the air. Apparently it’s calving season so there are lots close into the bay.

After that we headed back to our perfect little suburb of Stellenbosch to watch the sun set over the oak trees.

And yet again, Cape Town wins.