The Honeymoon - Day 2 - The Best Day

You'll remember that I mentioned that I had a hankering for horse riding on the beach. Well the maid of honour kindly donated a romantic beach ride to us as a wedding present - much to my delight and Mr Jones' consternation.

We chose to ride in Noordhoek - a rural(ish) area of Cape Town just down the coast. On the map it looked a short ride along a coast road and up a twisty bit in the mountains. But unfortunately the "twisty" bit has been open for just six months in the last 10 years because the local government is worried about being sued for falling rocks. So it took us an hour to drive round the base of Table Mountain instead.

Our taxi driver for the day was Trevor. He was Cape Malay and practically incomprehensible unless you concentrated really hard. He was chatty though and as well as being a taxi driver has in past lives been a wine delivery man, an undertaker, a wedding photographer (self taught and very scathing of our digital camera), grandfather and future entreprenuer.

Mr Jones asked him if being a taxi driver kept him busy. Not bad he replied. Especially last week when one of his colleagues was off sick and the other one got hijacked.

Mr Jones and I share a swift wide eyed glance and I ask if hijacking is common in Cape Town. Every now and again - but I've never been - is the answer. I lock my door and add "never been hijacked" to his list of accomplishments.

We arrive at Imhoff Farm at 11am - our ride is at 4pm but the hotel have assured us that there his plenty to do. The majority of the plenty is a Reptile Park - which clearly didn't go down well with me. After looking round the deli, craft shops and sussing out the stables it's 11.50am.

We decide to have lunch and settle ourselves down on the veranda of the restaurant - where we stay gazing at the view and chatting for the next four hours. We decide that we want to live right here forever in one of the massive houses with moutains in the back yard and a beach out the front.



Wrapped up in jumpers (It's winter in Cape Town) we head for the stables and Mr Jones tells me off when I sign the insurance form with "Speechley". I realise that I don't have a "Jones" signature. We saddle up and head out - just us and the two stable girls.



I immediately ask if we can go faster. Mr Jones says he's up for it so once we hit the beach we trot. Mr Jones bounces around a lot with a weird wincing expression on his face. We stop and the girls assure him that if he feels brave enough to canter it'll be far more comfortable. I nod in agreement and we set off. I turn back to see Mr Jones' eyes bulging out of the sockets and he begs to stop - citing a possible cessation of the Jones family tree if he's forced to continue.



Kindly he tells me to go for it - so I do - for two glorious kilometres of white sandy shoreline. All thoughts of psycho thoroughbreds and nasty falls clear from my mind as I canter along in the sunset, a huge grin plastered across my face.



I trot back to Mr Jones who points out a whale swimming just off the coast. "You don't get that in Skeggy," he says.

That evening - after another informative ride with our friend Trevor and a close call with a baboon on the road (apparently not an unusual sight and not normally met with squeals of delight from passengers - me!), we head out for dinner at The Codfather in Camps Bay for sushi, the freshest caught-today fish and the hugest prawns either of us have ever seen. A perfect end to a perfect day.