We made it to AFRICA!!!

By Kathy

Dates: September 18th - 23rd

We made it to AFRICA!!!! It is a dream come true!! After a very long flight from Dublin to Cape Town via Istanbul we have arrived. It was one of the most comfortable flights we had ever been on and our first of many with Turkish Airlines. We caught up on so many movies and even had some really good airplane food. Our layover was in Istanbul from Midnight to 2am so we thought we would be roaming around a sleepy airport but it was quite the opposite. I think this airport is operating at full speed 24 hours a day! If you look at the flights coming in and out you realize that they are the gateway airport for any country in the world. Some of the countries we didn’t even recognize and it makes you realize how big the world really is!

Sam sporting a retro flight hat compliments of Turkish Airlines

Just a glimpse of one of the departure screens. We are the 1:55 flight. 

Everybody is ready for the flight to Cape Town! Jack is already watching a movie :) 

When most people think about visiting Africa there are a few things that you picture in your head. Let’s demystify what it means to arrive in Africa:

Do you see an animals roaming the grasslands as soon as you arrive?? Do you land in a dirt runway?

No, not at all. Cape Town is a normal big city. It reminded me a lot of Ft. Lauderdale with a big downtown and in the beach areas you have beaches on one side of the road and the chic hotels and restaurants on the other. It will be a while until we see some of the big African animals.  We did see some animals near Cape Town but they are not what you would expect. Read on to find out what we saw!

Do you need to be wearing safari gear when you arrive??

No, but we did see some people in their safari pants and hats. They were definitely tourists!

Was it safe??

Yes, we stayed in a very safe area and we walked around at night to the restaurants. We will share with you a link to our accommodations and a little bit about the area and rental at the beginning of each section.

Was the food different??

No, we had a good international mix of Asian, Greek, Italian, Seafood. The most important thing about food in South Africa is the braai. A braai is an open grill.  It doesn't matter what is cooked as long as it is grilled. We quickly realized when we were booking our rentals that the braai is equally important to have as a bathroom. 

A little South African souvenir

A braai comes in all shapes and sizes. Sam enjoying a book around the braai in our Stellenbosch rental.

The Africa Plan

Map of South Africa

We stayed in Africa for a month and we split our time between two different areas - The Garden Route and Kruger National Park.

What is the Garden Route?? It is a well known drive between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth with several towns to stop at along the way. Each one offering different activities and animal encounters. From Port Elizabeth we flew to Johannesburg to start our journey to Kruger National Park.

The Garden Route - Just 10 hours straight through but this trip took us 2 weeks!

Cape Town

Accomodation:

AirBNB rental – a two-story townhouse in the Sea Point neighborhood. We were finally able to wash our clothes!! Yeah!! We were a little smelly when we arrived after traveling around Ireland without access to a washing machine. We were also able to work on our itinerary for the Garden Route and book the rest of our accommodations while we had wifi at the townhouse. The neighborhood also had some great restaurants and we had a fun evening in a Greek restaurant that we could walk to from our townhouse. It was an evening complete with gyros, Greek salads, fire, and breaking plates.

A little plate breaking at the Greek restaurant. This amazed Sam!

We found another soup dumpling restaurant near our apartment

What we did in Cape Town:

We booked a few extra nights in Cape Town to catch up on some sleep and recover from our long travel days. It worked out really well since Emma ended up catching a cold on the way down so she need an extra day of rest to feel normal again.

There is a lot to do around Cape Town but the one thing that hits you as soon as you arrive is the HUGE mountain in the middle of town called Table Mountain. It has a very flat top so the name fits. The catch to visiting Table Mountain is that you need to have a clear day to really enjoy it. Luckily, our first full day in the city was beautiful so we were able to take the cable car up to the top.

The cable car going up to the top of Table Mountain

The view of Cape Town from the cable car

We were surprised how much walking around there was to do when we got the top. We ended up spending several hours hiking and stopping at the café for hot chocolate. It was a bit breezy and cool at the top. We also met an animal called a Rock Dassie. We had never seen one before and it was love at first sight for Sam. The Dassie became his favorite animal in Africa.

 

A view from the top!

Sam and the Rock Dassie - The beginnings of a new friendship!

A great family picture from the other side of Table Mountain

Happy Emma!

What does he see??

The moment you realize your kids are old enough to take your picture

While Emma recovered the next day from her cold, we took the boys to a bobsledding park called Cool Runnings. They had a blast on the slides but Sam was right at the border for being able to go by himself. He was determined to ride solo and finally convinced the park to let him go down alone.

Sam on his way to the top!

Jack is right behind him!

Sam flying solo!

Jack speeding by

  

Emma was feeling much better the next day so we took a trip down the cape peninsula to Simon’s Town. We were going south to see our first African animal – the African penguin! Yes, you read that right….a penguin. A long, long time ago before we had kids when I worked at Microsoft I met a group of people from South Africa when I was in Seattle for orientation. We became friends and they told me some cool things about their country and the one fact that stuck in my head for all of these years was the fact that they had penguins!! I thought these flightless birds lived in Antarctica. Do they really live in Africa??? I couldn’t believe it when they told me and now I couldn’t believe that we were actually driving down the coast to see them.

Before we made to the beach where the penguins live we stopped in town and ate our first South African boerewors sausage at a little outdoor market downtown.

Some cool African trinkets at the market

 

A little singing is a must at a market

We even found some boats

Looking forward to our first boerewors

Downtown Simon's Town

 

Penguin Time!!

By golly... I think we found them!

If you look closely you will see the fuzzy baby penguins

Who you looking at?????

Kids + Penguins

The majestic penguin

After our fun with the penguins we decided to take a different route to Cape Town via  Chapman’s Peak. The drive was stunning with a beautiful rocky coastline and breaking waves below. Again, we lucked out on weather because if the weather is unfavorable they will close this road.

A little love for their big sis!

The road is not very wide and the drop is pretty steep

We made it around the peak. What a view!

Deep in thought....

Our next stop after Cape Town is a short drive to Stellenbosch (aka. the wine country). I can't wait to share with you our time in the vineyards and how we celebrated a national holiday in South Africa. 

The Luck of the Irish!

By Kathy

Dates: September 13th – 18^th

Total Miles Driven in Ireland: 600

Rental Car: Renault Captur (another tiny car)

A much needed welcome coffee when we landed! 

Our next stop on our trip is Ireland. We left bright and early in the morning for the quick 1-hour flight from Edinburgh to Dublin. We chose to stay in some of the smaller towns in Ireland and just briefly saw Dublin going in and out of the airport. We also found that Ireland was a little bit more expensive for accommodations, so we stayed in share house rentals for the first time. This would be different than our normal whole house rentals and we were not sure what to expect especially traveling with the kids. There will be information about each house, a link to the AirBNB page, and pictures at the beginning of each section. 

On our way to Gort - It was an early morning flight! 

Galway/Gort

Accommodations: 

Airbnb Shared House – We stayed about 30 minutes from Galway in a little town called Gort. The house that we stayed in was HUGE!! We met the very nice owners when we arrived, but they pretty much stayed in their wing of the house when we were there. They had horses and dogs but it was pretty rainy and cold so the kids didn’t get a chance to play outside. They had other rooms to rent but for the first night it was just us so we had the whole communal living room and dining room all to ourselves. They also had a cart of board games and we had some late nights playing competitive Monopoly.

Driving down the long driveway to the house.

Our first shared house rental

The stairs up to our room

Lots of Monopoly!!

What we did in Gort/Galway:

Our first night in Gort was rainy and we were pretty beat from the early morning wake up call, so we headed to a local pub and had toasted sandwiches with a pint of Guinness and the bartender made the kids a local favorite drink called the Mr. Waddie (orange cordial and water).  

Our first Guinness!

Shopping at the local grocery store in Gort. Always fun for the kids.

We always get a good laugh at some of the snacks!

The next day we took a bit of a drive to the Connemara National Park. The drive was beautiful, and we had a fun hike around the park. The views were stunning on the hike.  We packed a picnic lunch to have along the way and stopped and played with the donkeys and horses. Before we left we had a little fun at the playground.

The view from the national park trail

The kids found some friends

Heading up to the elevated part of the trail.

Lunch break at the top!

A little play time at the end of the hike!

On the way back we found this monastery 

On our way back to Gort we stopped to spend a few hours in Galway. There was lots of activity with live music in the streets and lots of shops. It was pretty touristy but we found a great Chili/Burger Bar restaurant that was kind of off the beaten path for dinner. Before we arrived we thought we would be able to enjoy some Irish tavern music but we found out that they start playing pretty late in the night and most of the places were not kid friendly.

Hanging out in Galway! Can't help but sing the Ed Sheeran song in my head. 

Street music in Galway

Killarney

Accommodations: 

Airbnb Shared House –  For our second stop, we stayed about 30 minutes away from Killarney in a pretty rural area. This was truly a home share experience. We had two bedrooms and our own living room, but it was a normal family home so we had a chance to interact with the family. We will always remember this stay because of the animals that they had – a dog (Winnie), a donkey (Neddie), and a horse (Ben). Our hosts (Kay, Larry and Marisa) were very kind to us and let the kids feed the donkey and horse while we were there. They also made us a traditional Irish meal of Bacon, Potatoes and Cabbage. This meal rated the best we had in Ireland.

Having fun feeding Neddie and Ben.

What we did in Killarney:

The town of Killarney was our favorite Irish town. The downtown area was a lot of fun to walk around with fun candy shops, stores, restaurants, and a much needed barber for Dan and Sam. The barbers never asked what kind of haircut they wanted they just started cutting. We realized most men/boys in Ireland have the exact same haircut so call it the Irish Cut. 

We also visited a very cool sweet shop that had a hidden staircase and when you opened the door they had cardboard cutouts of the Willy Wonka characters. The kids loved this and the owner introduced us to the Irish candy called the bon-bon. It was my favorite candy on the trip. It tasted like a Starburst on steroids with a much better texture.

After eating a few meals, we also learned that the potato is by far the most important food in Ireland. It comes with every meal and sometimes in a couple of different forms. We ordered Shepard’s Pie for dinner one night and they asked if we wanted potatoes or fries with it. I was confused and asked if there were potatoes on the top of the pie. She said yes but then asked what kind of potato I would like on the side. That is a lot of potato for one meal. We also found out that chips (french fries) come with your bacon and eggs in the morning.

The streets of Killarney

Sam getting his Irish haircut

Looking pretty slick!

The sweet shops were pretty awesome!

Shelves of the delicious bon-bons

We decided to go to Killarney National Park for a bike ride on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. This was voted the best bike ride on our trip. The trails were really nice and we passed lakes and castles along the way. At the end of the day we calculated that the bike ride was around 20 miles – longest ride so far for the kids.

Sam having fun on the hills

Quick stop on a bridge to take in the scenery

There was a little tea cafe along the trail and we stopped for sandwiches

Then we found the big castle and the boys went up and down the grass hill

Then had a few competitive races

Right before we made it back to town we found another castle

With Sunday being beautiful and sunny, we woke up on Monday and it was rainy and cold. This was our down day and we found an indoor water park that was very empty since all of the local kids were in school. They even had a nice adult spa section with steam rooms an saunas. Dan and I jumped from steam room to steam room (they had 4 different ones) and the kids played on the slides, wave pool, and lazy river. Since it was pool area we didn’t take any pictures since our stuff was in a locker. It was great to have a down day before we spent the next two days traveling to South Africa!

On our way from Killarney to the Dublin airport we found the Barack Obama Rest Plaza. We had no idea he had Irish ancestors and they named a whole rest area after him. 

Dropping off the rental car. We are ready to fly to South Africa!