Cape Point trip filled with shipwrecks and baboons

Iain Ray stands atop one of the many shipwrecks at Cape Point in South Africa. Photo by Brian Ray

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Did you know Cape Point is the most southwesterly point on the Africa continent? My family stayed in a cottage there a couple of weeks ago and it was so much fun! Over 500 years ago, Bartholomew Dias was trying to find a route to Asia from Europe and discovered Cape Point. He called it the Cape of Storms because sailors found the seas to be dangerous. It is also known as the Cape of Good Hope.

I learned that there were a lot of shipwrecks along the beaches. We took a hike and saw some of the shipwrecks. The ships were old and rusty, and broken up into many pieces. One of them looked like a fisherman’s boat and another one was a U.S. ship from World War II. The WWII ship’s name is the S.S. Thomas T. Tucker. That ship was sailing close to shore because the crew didn’t want the German submarines to find them. It wrecked because of the rocks. Even though the trail was very, very long and hot, it was awesome to see. It made me think that sailing must be tough at Cape Point.

There were huge sand dunes that were fun to slide down and mountains behind us. We were told baboons live in the mountains. One day we were eating lunch outside and the baboons came for a visit because they wanted our food. We moved inside and watched them from our windows. The baboons left and went on the beach and starting eating. We saw lots of ostriches on the beach too. It’s crazy to play on a beach with ostriches and baboons there too. We also saw a giant tortoise, eland, mountain zebra, different antelope and dassies.

I had a great time at Cape Point and I feel lucky to have been there.