I wasn't having any luck trying to go whale watching - the trips of out Cape Town had been cancelled as the whales were now too far away. So, I decided to head a bit south of Cape Town, to Simons Town, a historic naval base, which was nearer to where the whales currently were. Simons Town is also one of the only places where you can see African Penguins in the wild. So the plan was to try and go whale watching, but the backup plan was to go and see the penguins if whale watching wasn't an option. Getting to Simons Town meant my first encounter with South African trains. I got to the ticket desk and wasn't really given a choice, the lady at the ticket office expected that I would travel first class - at £2 for a journey just over an hour, this didn't seem a bad idea…I was told that the next train was at 11.20 from platform 4. The departures board had no mention of this train, it had trains before and after this one but nothing at 11.20. I went to the platform and there was a train there that claimed to be the 12.20. But at about 11.15 the signs suddenly changed their minds at it became the 11.20!

Once on board the train it was difficult to tell what made first class, first! The seats were arranged much like a tube train with seats down either side of the carriage facing inwards. The walls of the train were full of graffiti messages proclaiming warnings that I shouldn't sin as every day is judgment day… The only difference I could tell between first and second class was that in first class the seats were long plastic benches moulded with individual seat spaces, whereas second class were just plain long benches. As we sat waiting for the train to depart, hawkers came through the carriages selling their wares - mostly soft drinks, crisps, posters, and bizarrely one guy selling nail clippers.

Soon the train was underway. About 4 seats down on the opposite site of the train was a man probably in his fifties, his skin looking worn from the sun, several teeth missing, his jeans dirty with a massive hole in one of the knees. About 10 seconds into the journey he burst into song - nothing recognisable, just songs he appeared to be making up as he went along, He rocked back and forth as he sang making gestures with his hands that fitted with the music - as far as he was concerned this was his performance. Just as I thought things couldn't get weirder, at the next station a couple got on and stood at the end of the carriage. As soon as the train pulled off, they walked slowly down the carriage singing Christian hymns (in full harmony). Our original performer didn't seem to like this new competition. He stopped singing, stood up, and started to bang his head repeatedly off the metal hand rail. The Christians left at the next station which was only a few minutes down the line from where they had got on, the original performer ceased his strange form of head-banging, sat down, and resumed his performance. A couple of stations further on the people to my left got off, leaving an empty coke can on the seat. Our performer leapt to his feet, lunged across the carriage, grabbed the coke can and returned to his seat, proud that he now had a "microphone". With his new "microphone" the performance moved up in tempo. The performance continued with perhaps too much vigour and was cut cruelly short when during a particularly elaborate series of hand movements he accidentally threw the can out of the open train window behind him…! You never get onboard entertainment like that in first class back home...!

In the end I didn't manage to go whale watching. Two days ago they lost track of the whales and haven't found them again yet. It's towards the end of their season in South Africa and it looks as if they've moved on. So, plan B was needed - a short walk to Boulders Beach which is home to the African Penguins. From a single breeding pair they've now established a colony of over 3000 penguins. There were about 60 - 80 on the beach when I was there. The one thing that struck me was how inactive they were - for most of the time they just stood still. Occasionally a few might waddle down to the sea have a quick swim and come back to the beach again, but for the most part they just stood there statuesque in their pairs (they pair for life, are monogamous, and always return to the same place to breed each year). The colourings of the penguin are perfect camouflage - when they're swimming their white front makes it difficult for sea based predators to look up and see them against the daylight, while their black backs helps them blend into the sea and make it more difficult for air or land based predators to see them - just the first of many random animal facts that are going to be in this blog…!