Tag Archives: Clifton

My Biggest Baddest Bucket List entry

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My long weekend’s been totally consumed with working feverishly to get my entry for My Destination’s Biggest Baddest Bucket List competition in before the deadline which was at midnight GMT yesterday (that’s 2am this morning SA time)… I luckily got it in with about 30min to spare… sjoe…

Why so last minute?  Unfortunately I only recently learnt about it and entry was quite tough.  You had to do the following:

  • A 3min travel video on your favourite destination (with you in it – talking, presenting, etc)
  • A 500 word blog post about your most memorable travel story (including some pics)

And what would this get you?  Well the winner will walk away with a all expenses paid 6 month trip around the world!  Plus, when you get back home, they’re sweetening the deal even further with a $50,000.00 cash prize.  Incredible right?

The winner will need to blog, tweet, upload videos and make a lot of noise along the way, which is pretty much what I do on a daily basis already.  So right up my alley that.  AND I’m planning a 6 month sabbatical this year in any case.  So if that’s not fate, I don’t know. ;) Those who know me well will also tell you that if you asked me what my dream job would be, I’d always answer “travel show presenter”…

They are going to announce the top 10 on 15 April.  5 of the top ten will be based on votes, which means the folks who’ve known about the competition for a while and got their entries in well in advance definitely have the upper hand as they’ve had the time to rustle up votes.  I’m re-e-e-e-al-ly hoping my entry is awesome enough to make it into the other 5 spots.  So please hold thumbs, cross toes, whatever you can!  I need all the positive energy I can get.

Anyways, entries as I mentioned have closed.  And I see they’ve closed the voting too (which I’m very bummed about, was hoping they’d give those last minute stragglers a bit more time), but you can still check out my entry video.  I chose Cape Town as my destination (of course).

And the rest of my entry (i.e. the blog post, my pics, etc) you can check out over here.

I can tell you one thing, I had to do some brutal editing to get down to a 3min video only. Cape Town’s just so freakin’ awesome and I had so much great footage, it was a real challenge to show enough and also work in talking bits and show my personality and and and…  but I think the final product turned out to be quite fun.  Which was my goal.  I have to say a special thank you to everyone at the V&A Market on the Wharf who was willing to play along and also to Adam (the mixologist with all the flair) and the rest of the team at Orphanage for letting me invade their beautiful cocktail emporium.  Oh and also to Siv! For being my scooter stunt man.  And last but certainly not least, the BF (Bjorn) for helping with some of the filming & showing me how to use iMovie.  Much love to all.

It’s going to be a very tense 2 weeks, that I can tell you.  I don’t know if my heart’s gonna handle.  This would be a HUGE dream come true for sure…

xxx

Biking it in the summer sun

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So with all the Christmas eating and general silly season overindulgence, I’ve been in desperate need of getting my wobbly butt movin’ & shakin’ again. ;)

But with the beautiful weather we’ve been having, it just seems a bit of a waste to spend your time indoors at the gym.  Much better option?  Getting on a bike and cruising from the Sea Point promenade all the way down to Camps Bay baby!

One minor problemo is that I don’t actually own a bike.  But luckily the folks at Virgin Active Green Point have me covered.  You see, if you’re a Virgin Active member you can take out their slick Schwinn cruiser bikes for a couple of hours of biking fun.  How awesome is that right?  So that’s what Bjorn and I decided to do the other day and just like that, we were off…

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I have to note that this was only my 2nd time on a bike as an adult.  So I’m certainly no pro and still a little shaky.  You see I was totally put off riding a bike as a kid when something absolutely horrible happened to me… absolutely horrible I tell you… let me explain.  When I was little, all I wanted was a bright pink bike.  I asked Santa to please hook me up and promised to be a good girl and all that.  BUT THEN… Christmas came around and my little sister (who didn’t even want a bloody bike) got my bright pink bike of awesomeness and I got… dun dun dun… a purple one!?!  Purple…  purple!!!  I tried to suck it up, be the bigger person and all that, but every time I saw my little sister on MY pink bike I just wanted to push her off it.  Needless to say, biking became a hate activity for me and certainly wasn’t going to be my favourite pastime.  I also started hating the colour purple. :)

Anyways, fast forward to current day and I’m finally over that pink bike and ready to move on… (that only took like 20 plus years haha).  And for me, the best part of biking it on the promenade down to Camps Bay and back is the incredible views you get to take in.  I mean just check this out:

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Can’t imagine anything better than that.  Can you?  This is definitely my new favourite way to get some fresh air in my lungs, get my body moving and make the most of summer all at the same time.

So hopefully I’ll see you guys on the promenade.  It’s like totally hot right now. ;)

xxx

Congrats Cape Town! You beauty…

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If you haven’t already heard, Cape Town has just won the title of Africa’s Leading Beach Destination in the 2012 World Travel Awards.  Woohoo!

Now I know some of you might not think that this award is all that impressive seeing as it’s only for Africa and not the whole world.  BUT please don’t forget that we still kicked the ass of incredibly beautiful places like Mozambique, Kenya & Zanzibar to name a few – even though we have that little issue with our freakin’ freazing water.  Brrrrrr.  So ja, in my book, that’s pretty damn impressive and I’m very very proud…

To celebrate I decided to pull out two of my favourite beach pics from my personal stash.  Two photo’s which I feel show exactly why we came out tops:

Taken at this year’s Caprice Volleyball tournament

Pink sunset over Camps Bay… just doesn’t get better than that.

Again, congrats Cape Town!  Keep up the good work. :)

xxx

Cool Clifton sightings

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So this weekend, everyone was talking about the Japanese fishing ship that ran aground on Clifton 1 beach in the early hours of Saturday (apparently due to some thick fog we were experiencing).

Here’s a pic from Bjorn’s Instagram stream:

Taken around 11am on Sat. As you can see it was still very misty at that point.

We actually ended up in a Clifton 1 beach facing apartment on Sat eve for a birthday party and got to watch them trying to tow the ship out.  The efforts were totally unsuccessful as they only had one tugboat and it would seem that the ship had properly gotten sucked deep into the sand ensuring that it didn’t want to budge.  As the tugboat tried to pull it out, the chains straightened & tightened and then we heard a massive bang.  It kinda sounded like a piece of the ship had broken off.  Luckily everything was cool, but the ship was still sitting pretty.  A few minutes later, it looked like they had given up.  They probably decided to go back to the drawing board, realising that they definitely needed more reinforcements. ;)

Anyhoo… that’s all exciting and stuff and all the Clifton residents are seriously pissed etc.  Big news for Cape Town.  BUT, I saw a much cooler thing on the way back to our car after the party.  Someone had cleverly changed a sign indicating that the road narrows due to some construction going on into a “Hi” sign.  Check it out:

Come on, doesn’t that just make you smile?

Yes, it’s totally silly and doesn’t quite match up to a shipwreck – I know.  But it sure did make me laugh.  And because laughter is good for the soul, I had to share.  Hopefully it has brightened up your Monday a teensy bit. :)

xxx

Sunset dinner @ The Bungalow

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Last Sunday, Bjorn and I got treated to an amazing dinner spread at the gorgeous Bungalow in Clifton.

Some might remember this location as the old La Med – a regular student / Sunday afternoon party jol which I frequented regularly back in my early Cape Town days.  But now it has been transformed into a sophisticated drinking, eating and socialising spot but with the same kick ass view and fresh beach air.  The restaurant is split into 3 sections.  You can opt to sit outside to soak up some sun, or you can sit kind of semi-outside in a more relaxed dining area with a beach cottage feel and lit up cocktail bar:

In more of a fancy mood?  No problem, chek out their formal dining area inside:

Loved the chill out couch tables on the outer edges...

Drinks wise, we thought we’d get into the beach spirit (even though it was sadly a very chilly night) witih some cocktails.  A must have on their cocktail menu is without a doubt their Piña colada (R45):

This baby rocked

Then for starters, Bjorn opted for the beef carpaccio (R80) while I got the intriguing Namibian crab claw tempura (R100)…

That beef carpaccio was absolutely beautiful.  But then again, it’s pretty hard to stuff that dish up if you’ve sourced great ingredients.  My crab tempura was interesting.  I loved the fluffiness of the crab meat (crab is not something I’ve ever really tried before), but I thought the presentation could have been better, especially seeing as this is their most expensive starter.

Bjorn was verrrrry hungry and also got a little sushi snack to tie him over while we waited for our mains.  It was good as far as sushi goes, fresh ingredients and nice sticky rice.  Loved the fact that they give you a decent amount of wasabi & ginger.  (Absolutely hate restaurants who skimp on those ;) )

Tuna california roll (65)

Then for mains we were both in a heavy carnivore mood – so I got the Madagascar style sirloin with roasted veggies as my side (R100):

And Bjorn got the Venison of the day (which was Kudu) with some crispy thin fries as his side (R160):

Mine was good.  But that Kudu steak of Bjorn’s was out of this  world.  I had serious food envy and ended up begging for little bites from his plate (he wasn’t happy about this by any means… hehe… but he’s a good boyfriend… aaaaah).  AND after trying to be all healthy with my roasted veggies, I also ended up stealing most of his chips. :)

By the time we got to dessert, we were absolutely stuffed.  So we opted to share the Crème brûlée (R45).  But just look how pretty it was!

And it tasted just as good as it looked...

All ‘n all, we had a really great evening at The Bungalow.  Yes – I do think the food is a bit pricey.  But the service was very good, the place is beautiful and for that Kudu steak, Piña colada & Crème brûlée, they get the following Miss K Kiss-o-Meter rating from me:

Just a tip:  Really try get there before the sun sets.  There’s something just so incredibly cool about dining while watching a beautiful sunset…  it’s important to stop & enjoy these little pleasures in life, isn’t it? ;)

xxx