Visiting the penguins!

The African Penguin
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Boulders Beach is located south of Cape Town in Simons Town.  We drove over Chapman's Peak which is a great winding road with fabulous scenery.  We then stopped off in Scarborough which is nothing like the UK equivalent!  It is a tiny village with a beautiful white sandy beach on the Atlantic coast.  The water is so cold on the Atlantic side of the Cape that no-one swims in it - it comes up from Antarctica so not surprising really!  Houses are dotted in the lush green hillside sloping away from the beach.  It is an absolutely beautiful spot and quite quiet which is nice after the busyness of Camps Bay. After having a drink in what appears to be the only bar in the place we drove over the hills to the Indian Ocean side of the Cape and to Simons Town and Boulders Beach.  The waters here are much warmer and people can swim without getting too cold.  Also swimming here is a colony of jackass penguins, which have been renamed the African penguin.  The penguins seem to like it here - no snow but they seem happy enough and it's great seeing them in the wild not just in a zoo.  You can get pretty close to them on platforms but cannot walk on the beach which has been given over to them.  However, 2 minutes walk away is a public beach which is really pretty and small and the penguins often swim with people and walk amongst the sunbathers.  They look really cute when they waddle around, and I took far too many photos of them!

The penguins often swim with people