Cape Town

• The Cape Escape - Cape Town
• My Mountain High in Cape Town - Cape Town
• The Drop Zone - Cape Town
• On the trail to true adventure - Johannesburg
• The great es-Cape - Cape Town
• Come into the Garden - The Garden Route
• My Zulu Extravaganza - Durban
• Up Close and Personal - South African Safari
• Tracking Big Game - Kruger National Park
• Sleeping with the Lions - South African Safari
• A Safari with real pride - South African Safari
• Where the Lion King comes to Life - South African Safari
• Our guide to the top 10 safaris - South African Safari
• A Roaring Success - Victoria Falls
• Come into the Garden - The Garden Route
• The Worlds Most Beautiful Road? - The Garden Route
• Zipping off to Zanzibar - Zanzibar, Kenya
• Africa's catch of the day - Mozambique
• The Cape escape… and it was right up my Street - Garden Route: South Africa
• The nation kissed by a rainbow - South Africa
• Our wild silver wedding! - Kenya

NERVOUS? PAUL MOUTHED. Spread below me was Cape Town’s surf-tossed West Coast, while inland I could just make out the aircraft hangar, a dot among the fields.

I nodded. When you’re 10,000 ft up in a tiny plane with open doors, nerves do tend to kick in. Couple that with the fact that very soon you’re going to jump and things start to look decidedly scary.

But Paul, my skydiving “tandem”, reassured me. “You’re my sixteen hundredth jumping partner,” he bellowed, massaging my neck. Then we were off, free falling, arms outstretched.

At 120mph, it’s a bit like being doused with a bucket of icy water as the wind whines frenetically around your ears.

Paul opened the parachute. The whistle of wind changed to an unnerving silence, and fear gave way to joy. For five minutes, we glided through the air, shouting with exuberance. Occasionally we spun around just for the fun of feeling giddy.

There, a way off, was the flattened wedge of Table Mountain, its crags glowing in the setting sun like strips of rusty metal. In the distance lay the fertile valleys of Stellenbosch, a rich green grid of vineyards snaking as far as the eye could see.

It was an unusual way to kick off a long weekend. But despite the tiring flight, it is feasible to spend an extended weekend in Cape Town. The two-hour time difference neatly dispenses with jet lag and the variety of things to do leaves little chance for feeling weary.

You can taste the Cape’s celebrated wines on estates that double as grand hotels. Stay the night at Constantia Uitsig and you can enjoy those wines over a fine dinner costing less than half what you’d pay at home.

There’s excellent shopping at the waterfront, the atmospheric harbourside development with open-air restaurants and a mall.

And within minutes of the city bowl - Cape Town’s urban heart - you find a variety of beaches, from the crowded and trendy to windswept deserted coves.

A string of sandy bays

The best beaches, though not necessarily for swimming, hug the Atlantic coast. A string of sandy bays front seaside cafes, bars and villas cut into the foothills of the twelve apostles, craggy peaks that run from Table Mountain to the sea.

From my window at our second hotel, The Bay, I looked on to Camps Bay, considered the pick of the bunch.

That night, a crowd gathered to watch the sun set. A cheer went up, only just audible over the crash of surf, as the sun slipped beneath the horizon.

Earlier, I had enjoyed a spot of urban hiking. Having a mountain right in the city means climbing is a popular weekend pastime for fit Capetonians.

There are more than 300 routes to Table Mountain’s summit and, if you’re not sure of the terrain, a guide will lead the way and identify wildlife.

I spurned the rock climbing, and stuck to the easier pathways of the Cecilia Circuit - the mountain’s lush “back table”.

On this four - hour hike we tracked through forests of fragrant eucalyptus and pine.

Plants such as the colourful proteas and dense - leafed ericas punctuated our route.

Twelve hundred feet up and we had reached the top. The view, if you manage to dodge the “tablecloth” - the notoriously motionless cloud that regularly drapes itself over the summit - easily justifies the effort.

Directly below, laid out like children’s building blocks, are the sprawling villas of the well - heeled suburbs of Bishop’s Court and Claremont.

Brilliantly coloured homes

From the brilliantly coloured homes of the Bo-Kaap, the Malay Quarter, we drove east of the city centre to a desolate wasteland, at odds with the neighbouring urban sprawl.

This was once District Six, a vibrant coloured community that in 1966 was designated a white area. The bulldozers moved in and 60,000 people, some of whose families had lived there for five generations, were evicted.

Among the poignant exhibits at the District Six Museum is a large floor map on which former residents have labelled their homes and the features of the neighbourhood. Someone has inked in Majiets Barber shop; another, the Sizani family home.

Former District Six resident, Linda Fortune, who helped set up the museum, explained: “Without this museum, there are no roots for our children and grandchildren.”

In Langa, Cape Town’s oldest formal black township, we saw tiny wooden shacks that were family homes. Zanele, a woman in her 20s, led us past the “working class” bungalows of Sigcawu Avenue to the hostel area of run-down tenement blocks where three families can share one small bedroom.

At the Dalukhanyo pre-school, toddlers sat in the sun reciting a poem. They waved enthusiastically. “Bringing tourists here,” explained Zanele, “ploughs money into the community. It shows our people that tourism can benefit townships, too.”