Cape Town, South Africa 1 - 8 March 08

Earthrounders Meeting

5 March 2008. Roundtable with the Earthrounders at Erinvale Club House. Ricky de Agrela (South African) gave an excellent presentation on his round-the-world flight in a weight-shift microlight. We met up with Ricky for the first time back in December when he gave us his book that we read avidly from cover to cover while back in Switzerland. This was followed by lunch at the beautiful Vergelegen Vineyard, dating back from the 18th century.

6 March 2008. As it was hot and sunny, we took the cable car up to Table Mountain and went for a two-hour walk to the eastern end of the Table Top. Angela spotted a Cape eagle owl near the eastern end where the density of visiting tourists decreased by orders of magnitude. The owl must have been half asleep as it didn’t move more than a foot while Angela joined Flemming up at the view point. She talked to it and it winked back at her. Apparently it is very rare to see such an owl just standing on a path. They normally prefer the branch of a tree. Later, we joined the Earthrounders at the Black Marlin Restaurant near Boulders Beach. In the evening we had a divine dinner at the D'Vine Restaurant.

7 March. 2008. Together with two of the Earthrounders, Dean and Wayne, we took a boat trip from the Waterfront to Robben Island where political prisoners such as Nelson Mandela were incarcerated during the Apartheid era. After a late lunch at Den Anker at the Waterfront, we visited Frank's Heaven kindergarten at Kylemore, financed by Frank Hettlich and his family. Wine tasting, followed by dinner at Tokara Restaurant with all the Earthrounders. The flag for organizing the next meeting to be held in 2010 was passed to Margi and Gérard Moss (Brazil).

8 March 2008. Another hot, sunny day. Lunch was hosted by Stellenbosch Flying Club for all the Earthrounders. Margi Moss had asked Lee to join us. Lee lived in Brazil until last year when she returned to South Africa. Angela knew her from Brazil and Lee told her that other friends from Angela’s Brazil days were now in Vilankulo, Mozambique, where we are going to be spending our first night in the country. Lee took our email address to send to these friends, Rosemary and Robert Forrester. After lunch, Flemming reinstalled the extra fuel tank in Honey Mooney in preparation for our departure tomorrow morning. The Earthrounders farewell dinner was at the Spier's winery restaurant, the Moyo. Angela's handbag was unfortunately stolen during the dinner. It contained some money, two pairs of prescription glasses and debit and credit cards, but fortunately her passport was not in there.

Thanks to:

Bob and Fizzy Haskins, Dorise and Bianca Hettlich, Claudia and Robin Gore, Stellenbosch Flying Club.