Cape Peninsula – Part 1
A “must do” tour for all visitors to Cape Town is a trip around the Cape Peninsula. You can head off in either direction, you can take a tour or hire a car, which gives you absolute freedom to do as you please. We hired a car and decided to go in a clockwise direction, ie heading off behind Table Mountain, to False Bay, then down to Cape Point and up the Atlantic Coast, which means that you catch the morning sun on the way out and the evening sun on the way back. It’s a breathtaking drive, about 150 km in all and there is a lot to pack in so it is good to start early.
We bypassed Kirstenbosh and Constantia (you can easily do these another day) and headed straight down the M3 to Muizenburg, with all the brightly-coloured beach huts that you see in the postcards and then further on past the other False Bay beaches, such as Fishhoek. Depending on the time of the year, this can be a great place for whales, although they usually don’t appear till the Spring and early Summer. If you see groups of people standing along the roadside staring at the water, chances are they have spotted some.
Then head on down to Simon’s Town which is a great place to stop for a drink or lunch, gazing across the bay. Once a main base of the Royal Navy’s South Atlantic Squadron, it is full of quaint cottages, cobbled streets, shops and art galleries. A good place to explore and stop for a coffee.
Heading further South, the next stop has to be Boulder’s Beach, world renowned for its large colony of African Penguins where you can take a leisurely walk amongst these delightful creatures that populate the beach in their hundreds. They were first spotted here in 1983. They obviously liked it here (the fishing is good!) because by now there are estimated to be over 2500 adults. If you are a resident, you might think them noisy and messy but they are one of the tourist attractions on the Peninsula.
The area has now been taken over by Cape Peninsula National Park and the birds have been restrained from wandering inland by a fence. Boardwalks have been built and this is probably the only place in the world where one can actually swim amongst the penguins. Another health warning, they have a nasty bite!