A long post-conference weekend in the Cape

After a wonderful week at the Vineyard Hotel with Flotation '23 delegates it was nice to relax for a few days in the Cape Peninsula before the long trips home.

On Saturday Amanda and Jon spent a few hours in Camps Bay, Cape Town's most famous beach, where they had lunch with Pablo Brito-Parada, from Imperial College, UK. Pablo is now associated with MEI, having taken over from me as Editor-in-Chief of Minerals Engineering last year. He will now be busy assessing the papers from Flotation '23 for the special conference issue.

Jon returned home to Luxembourg on Saturday evening, while Amanda stayed on and spent a few days at Muizenberg. Barbara and I stayed for a week further down the False Bay coast at Fish Hoek, once regarded as having the most dangerous beach in the world, due to the number of fatal white shark attacks, but now guarded by shark nets.

Shark protection at Fish Hoek

On Saturday Barbara and I walked the five and a half mile walk from Fish Hoek to Simon's Town, South Africa's largest naval base. 

After a superb lunch at the Lighthouse Cafe we returned by Uber, definitely our recommendation for safe and easy travel around Cape Town.

By Simon's Town harbour

On Sunday Amanda walked from Muizenberg and Barbara and I from Fish Hoek, to meet up for lunch in the fishing village of Kalk Bay. The renowned fish restaurant the Harbour House is an ever popular evening visit for delegates from the Vineyard, only about 25 minutes away by road.

Kalk Bay Harbour

Lunch at the Harbour House

The Winelands! To most people this means the many vineyards in the Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl districts, but just a 15 minute drive from the Vineyard Hotel, on the other side of the mountain, is the fertile Constantia Valley, home to South Africa's oldest wine estates. 

Steenberg is the oldest registered wine farm in South Africa and Barbara and I met Amanda there on Monday for a wonderful lunch in the Bistro Sixteen82 restaurant,  named after the year in which Steenberg was established. There can be few better restaurants than this in the world, a fitting end to our long weekend in the beautiful Cape.

The Steenberg estate in the Constantia Valley