Cape Argulhas. The southern-most tip of Africa. I was first surprised that Cape Town was not the tip – I always thought that was where the Atlantic and Indian oceans met – at Cape Point, but it turns out that the REAL point is a few hundred km to the east. So of course we had to go there on the way to Cape Town.
Meet Shuk.
Shuk is a stuffed polar bear that I got when I was born.
Polar bears are amazing (and, by the way ,also endangered – you can read more about that here). Lots of people think that there are both polar bears and penguins at both the south pole and the north pole, but it is not true. Polar bears live only in icy parts of the northern hemisphere, and penguins live only in the colder bits of the southern hemisphere. So Shuk is maybe the only polar bear in Africa right now. FYI Shuk is short for “Inukshuk”. Inukshuks are stone figures that were traditionally made by Inuit people in the Arctic to mark important places or for navigation.
At different times in this blog I’m going to tell you what Shuk is thinking. In my family we call it “stuff Shuk says” or #sss. At Cape Argulhas, Shuk was thinking about two things:
· "If I keep going south, there must be ice!” #sss
· “I’m hungry. Where are the seals?” #sss
The favourite food of polar bears is seals, which are found in both northern and southern hemispheres. I think he could smell the seals, but we didn’t see any that day.
Shuk is a stuffed polar bear that I got when I was born.
Polar bears are amazing (and, by the way ,also endangered – you can read more about that here). Lots of people think that there are both polar bears and penguins at both the south pole and the north pole, but it is not true. Polar bears live only in icy parts of the northern hemisphere, and penguins live only in the colder bits of the southern hemisphere. So Shuk is maybe the only polar bear in Africa right now. FYI Shuk is short for “Inukshuk”. Inukshuks are stone figures that were traditionally made by Inuit people in the Arctic to mark important places or for navigation.
At different times in this blog I’m going to tell you what Shuk is thinking. In my family we call it “stuff Shuk says” or #sss. At Cape Argulhas, Shuk was thinking about two things:
· "If I keep going south, there must be ice!” #sss
· “I’m hungry. Where are the seals?” #sss
The favourite food of polar bears is seals, which are found in both northern and southern hemispheres. I think he could smell the seals, but we didn’t see any that day.
We had to put our feet into the water at the southern-most point of the drive.
Yes, it was COLD!!!!
From here, the rest of the drive is north, latitudinally speaking. That’s cool. Or hot. Or whatever. Off we go!
And yes, technically this all happened before we got to Cape Town, which I already talked about below, but things got a little bit out of order based on lousy internet access and other stuff. So just use the map at the start to figure it out if you get confused.
And yes, technically this all happened before we got to Cape Town, which I already talked about below, but things got a little bit out of order based on lousy internet access and other stuff. So just use the map at the start to figure it out if you get confused.