Janice Of The Jungle... "Alone" In Cape Town

Did You Know? - The Victoria & Alfred (V&A) Waterfront in Cape Town is situated on the Atlantic shore, Table Bay Harbor, the City of Cape Town and Table Mountain. Adrian van der Vyver designed the complex. The Waterfront attracts more than 23 million visitors a year.

Situated in South Africa’s oldest working harbor, the 123 hectares (300 acres) area has been developed for mixed-use, with both residential and commercial real estate.

Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria, visited the Cape Colony harbor in 1860 as a sixteen year-old Royal Navy Midshipman on HMS Euryalus. He made a big splash with the colonials and the tribal chiefs on this first-ever visit by a member of the Royal Family. The first basin of the new Navy Yard was named after him and the second after his mother.

Did You Know? - Nobel Square, located in the heart of South Africa's premier tourist attraction, The V&A Waterfront, is another spot where you can join the throngs lining up for their selfie with Madiba. This square also honours the 3 other South African Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. Each Laureate played his own meaningful and different role in achieving peace and democracy, each one at a different time of the struggle, while sometimes uniting their efforts. They each come from different political backgrounds, races, origins and spoke different languages, but together the four left an indelible mark on the South African landscape. These bronze sculptures are slightly larger than life and have the Laureates' preferred quotations engraved in their chosen language in front of the sculptures.

Did You Know? - Our Cape Wheel is a giant observation wheel that offers a spectacular 360˚ panoramic view of Cape Town from the vibrant V&A Waterfront precinct.
Your viewing experience across the Mother City includes Table Mountain, Robben Island, Cape Town City skyline, Paarl Mountains, and the Cape Town Stadium.
The Cape Wheel offers 30 fully enclosed air conditioned cabins that will take you 40 metres above the ground in safety and comfort on the four revolution ride.

Did You Know? - The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway is a state of the art cable car transportation system offering visitors a five-minute ride to the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. It is one of Cape Town's most popular tourist attractions with approximately 900,000 people a year using the Cableway. In February 2016, the Cableway welcomed its 25 millionth visitor.

The upper cable station is on the westernmost end of the Table Mountain plateau, at an elevation of 1,067 metres (3,501 ft). The upper cable station offers views over Cape Town, Table Bay and Robben Island to the north, and the Atlantic seaboard to the west and south. Amenities at the upper station include free guided walking tours, an audio tour, meals and internet access.

Did You Know? - A Norwegian engineer, Trygve Stromsoe, presented plans for a cableway in 1926, and construction began soon after with the formation of the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company (TMACC).

Construction was completed in 1929 at a cost of GB£60,000 (equivalent to £11,400,000 in 2011 pounds) and the cableway was opened on October 4, 1929, by the Mayor of Cape Town AJS Lewis. The cableway has been upgraded three times since then. Sir David Graaff, a leading industrialist, former mayor of Cape Town and government minister, also invested heavily in the project.

In 1993, the son of one of the founders sold the TMACC and the new owners took charge of upgrading the cableway. In 1997, the cableway was reopened after extensive renovations, and new cars were introduced.

Did You Know? - The "Rotair" cableway was installed in 1997, the design being based on the Titlis Rotair cableway in Engelberg, Switzerland. Each car carries 65 passengers (compared to 25 for the old cars), and runs on a double cable making them more stable in high winds, giving a faster journey of 4–5 minutes to the summit. The floors of the cars rotate through 360 degrees during the ascent or descent, giving passengers a panoramic view.

Did You Know? - Eve's footprint is the popular name for a set of fossilized footprints discovered on the shore of Langebaan Lagoon, South Africa in 1995. They are thought to be those of a female human and have been dated to approximately 117,000 years ago. This makes them the oldest known footprints of an anatomically-modern human. The estimated age of Eve's footprint means that the individual who left the tracks in the soil, thought to be female, would have lived within the current wide range of estimates for the date of Mitochondrial Eve.

Berger and Roberts say the prints were made on a steep sand dune during a turbulent rainstorm. The location where they were found is in southwest South Africa about 60 to 70 miles (about 100 kilometres) northwest of Cape Town in the West Coast National Park. They were found in a ledge of sandstone at the edge of Langebaan Lagoon near the Atlantic coast. The preserved prints were moved to the South African Museum in Cape Town for protection and a concrete replica was mounted on the shores of Langebaan.

The maker of the footprints lived in the time of the emergence of modern Homo sapiens, or people anatomically similar to humans alive today. The footprints measure eight and a half inches (22-26 centimetres) in length and are about the size of a modern-day (U.S.) woman's size 7½ shoe (British size 6, continental European size 39½

Did You Know? - The rock hyrax (Procavia capensis), also called rock badger and Cape hyrax, is commonly referred to in South African English as the dassie. It is one of the four living species of the order Hyracoidea, and the only living species in the genus Procavia.

Like all hyraxes, it is a medium-sized (~4 kg) terrestrial mammal, superficially resembling a guinea pig with short ears and tail.

The closest living relatives to hyraxes are the modern-day elephants and sirenians. The rock hyrax is found across Africa and the Middle East in habitats with rock crevices into which it escapes from predators. It is the only extant terrestrial afrotherian in the Middle East. Hyraxes typically live in groups of 10–80 animals, and forage as a group. They have been reported to use sentries: one or more animals take up position on a vantage point and issue alarm calls on the approach of predators.

Did You Know? - Consisting of layers of Table Mountain Sandstone and Cape Granite formed by volcanic and glacial action 520 million years ago, Table Mountain is at least 6 times older than the Himalayas, making it one of the oldest mountains in the world. The Cape’s original Khoi / San inhabitants named the mountain ‘Hoerikwaggo’ meaning ‘Mountain of the Sea’. Located at 33.56′ S, it’s the jewel of the peninsula that was named Cabo da Boa Esperanza (or Cape of Good Hope) by early Portuguese explorers. To Nelson Mandela and fellow freedom fighters imprisoned on Robben Island, it always represented a tantalising reminder of freedom.

The mountain’s famous tablecloth is a meteorological phenomenon that causes cloud to tumble down the mountain slopes like billowing fabric. This phenomena is known as ‘Kaggen’s Karos’ after the San tale of ho Kaggen, the mantis god, pulls a white karos (animal pelt) from his mountain cave to quench fires on the mountain. A later explanation was that a Dutch pirate, Jan van Hunks, challenged the devil to a smoking contest that persists to this day.

Did You Know? - The crown jewel in the Cape Floristic Region, Table Mountain is home to an incredible diversity of endemic species. The Cape Floral Kingdom is the smallest of the world’s six plant kingdoms, but is the richest for its size, with over 8500 distinct species, many of which grow nowhere else.

Key to the diversity of the floral kingdom found throughout the Peninsula is the range of animal and insect species that have developed unique partnerships with plants.

The most commonly seen animals are the Rock Hyrax (or Dassie), but it is the smaller species such as sunbirds and sugarbirds, who perform a vital role in pollinating the range of flowering plants the mountain is so well known for. Playing a less-visible, but no less important role, are species such as the Pugnacious Ant, which bury seeds, thus protecting them from fire and predators.