Things To Do in Cape Town, South Africa

View of Table Mountain from Lion's Head

Cape Town is one of my favourite cities in the world. It's a beautiful blend of the coast, the mountains and the city. It's located on the shore of Table Bay, on the western coast of South Africa. It's the second most populous city after Johannesburg. It's safe, everything is reasonably priced and there's so much to see and do!

View of Lion's Head from Table Mountain

Even though we were berthed at Hout Bay, we caught the public bus into Cape Town frequently. The bus route goes along the coast which made it a nice and scenic ride.

We also hired a car for several days to visit Stellenbosch, Simon's Town as well as Table Mountain, Lion's Head in Cape Town.

Table Mountain is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking Cape Town. The main feature of Table Mountain is the level plateau approximately 3 kilometres from side to side, edged by impressive cliffs.

We hiked up via Platteklip Gorge to Maclears Beacon, then to the Upper Cable Station and back down under the cables to the Lower Cable Station. Do note the route under the cables (India Venster route) is not recommended for the faint hearted but if you're up to it, the view is spectacular! 

Adrena, Alex, Dror and I at the foot of Plattekilp George

Start of trail

The Plateau

The highest point on Table Mountain is towards the eastern end of the plateau and is marked by Maclear's Beacon, a stone cairn built in 1865 by Sir Thomas Maclear for trigonometrical survey. It is 1,086 metres (3,563 ft) above sea level, about 19 metres (62 ft) higher than the cable station at the western end of the plateau. 

Maclear's Beacon

About 45 mins walk from the Pletteklip George landing

View of the Hely-Hutchinson Reservoir

Feeling like I'm on top of the world

The dassie, or Rock Hyrax is surprisingly not a rodent (even though it looks like one) and the nearest living relative is the elephant!

Dassies are commonly spotted on Table mountain. They are well adapted to living on rocks and mountains; their feet have rubbery pads with sweat glands which allows them to grip and climb on steep rock surfaces.

We hiked back down via the India Venster route. This route is considered to be dangerous and classified as tough to difficult. It doesn't have a proper trail like the Platteklip route, but as long as you follow the yellow foot prints or spray paint marks you won't get lost. 

It's probably less scary climbing up than down

Beautiful view of Cape Town!

And Lion's Head

View from Lion's Head

Lion's Head is a mountain between Table Mountain and Signal Hill. It peaks at 669 metres (2,195 ft) above sea level. The peak forms part of a dramatic backdrop to the city of Cape Town.

Raptor Crew

All in one - where the ocean meets the city and the mountains

On 3rd March 2014, we departed Hout Bay and moved 20 nautical miles to V&A Waterfront Marina which is accessed from Granger Bay through the Victoria and the Alfred Basins under the Swing Bridge in Cape Town to clear out. 

Heading to V&A Waterfront Marina

Swing Bridge

Unfortunately on our way in just under the swing bridge, we hit a piece of log. It broke our morse cable and took a piece out of our prop! We had to stay a night in the marina (S 33.54.498 E 18.25.099) to complete our repairs. 

Goodbye South Africa

We set off for Namibia the next day. 

Goodbye South Africa! 113 days here and we're glad to report we've seen the big 5, enjoyed the local food, arts & crafts markets, visited the vineyards, sailed around the Cape, climbed up & down Table Mountain, had sea lions for "pets" and even bought a vuvuzela!

These memories shall not be tainted by the experience we had with Immigration at the time of clearing out. According to their system, we had over stayed our visa. Even though we spent 2 whole days at Home Affairs, visited 2 different offices, submitted the application and even paid for the extension before our visa expired. All that, and still get fined?! 

They have a very strange system in which you do not get an immediate approval/rejection for the visa extension, sometimes they take up to 6 months to respond. In our case, because we departed South Africa before we received our approval, we were therefore flagged as over stayed. 

We may not agree with how things are run but we still enjoyed our stay. South Africa is definitely on our top 5 favourite destinations. 

Read More »

Stellenborsh, South Africa

Stellenbosch is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, situated about 50 kilometres east of Cape Town, along the banks of the Eerste River. It's the second oldest town in South Africa.

It's a really beautiful drive through the vineyards and mountains. Here are some of the vineyards/wineries we visited.

Grapes!

Really juicy and fresh fig! Plucked off the tree

Hidden Valley Wines is located on the slopes of Helderberg Mountain near Stellenbosch (Address: Annandale Rd, Stellenbosch NU, Stellenbosch, 7613, South Africa). A lovely place to sit back, relax, enjoy a glass of wine with the gorgeous views.

Our rented car

Peter Falke Winery is also nestled on the slopes of the Helderberg mountains. (Address: Groenvlei Farm, Annandale road, Stellenbosch, 7600, South Africa). There's a really nice open lawn for you to soak in the breathtaking scenery. Dog friendly too.

Tokara is another beautiful vineyard, planted on the southern slopes of Simonsberg Mountain. Famous for its award-winning wines, brandy and olive oils.

Simply beautiful isn't it? Can't wait to visit Stellenborsh again!

Read More »

Simon's Town, South Africa

We drove to Simon's town (or sometimes spelt as Simonstown), another town not far from Cape Town to see the African penguins, also known as the Jackass penguins! widely known as the "jackass" penguin for its donkey-like bray. A colony settled in Boulders Beach since 1985. 

They're really cute and didn't seem to mind us coming close to them for a photo at all. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience because it seemed as if there was an unspoken trust between us (humans and wild animals). Together in peace and harmony, that's really the way it should always be.

💛

Read More »

Noordhoek Beach, South Africa

Gorgeous coastline

Noordhoek is another suburb in Cape Town, located about 35 km south of the city and 15 km from Hout Bay. We took the scenic route from Hout Bay around Chapman's Peak to Noordhoek also known as the "Chapman’s Peak Drive" or as the locals fondly call it "Chappies", is a 9 km route that winds (114 curves) along the rocky Atlantic coastline. It's one of the most spectacular marine drives with breathtaking views of the mountains, coast and ocean. If you're in Cape Town, we highly recommend taking a drive here.

View of Hout Bay

We made a stop at the Noordhoek beach en-route to Simonstown. This 8 km beach is known for its long, wide, white sandy beach. Apparently very popular with surfers and horse riders, however we did not see any that day.

"Noordhoek" means "north corner" in Dutch, but not sure why it's called that

Beach houses on Noordhoek beach

Stunning views of the mountains, however some parts of the beach is overgrown with shrubs and strewn with seaweed

Wide white sandy beach

"Kakapo" steamship wreck

Further down the southern end of the beach is the wreck of the steamship "Kakapo", a 665 ton schooner rigged steamship which ran aground in 1900.

It was reported that she was on her maiden voyage from Wales, UK to Sydney, Australia under the command of a newly ticketed Danish Captain.

She set off from Cape Town harbour on 25th May, heading south to follow the west coast of the Cape Peninsula and then east around Cape Point and Cape Agulhas, the southern most tip of Africa.

Unfortunately, due to poor visibility, strong winds and high seas on that stormy day, when the Captain caught sight of Chapman’s Peak, he gave instructions to turn hard to port, maintaining full speed thinking Chapman's Peak was Cape Point.

By the time he realised his mistake, it was too late. The ships forward momentum had drove her straight onto the beach, embedding her so firmly into the sand that they were unable to refloat her. Parts of her still remain over a century later.

Even though no lives were lost as crew were able to alight onto the sand, the Captain was so distraught by the loss of his ship that he apparently stayed on board refusing to leave or speak to anyone for 3 years, until he was finally escorted off the ship and taken to a mental facility.

Alex looking at the blue-green body of water

As we walked along the beach, we noticed a stream of blue-green water flowing into the sea. Little did we know at that time, the City warned residents and visitors to avoid contact with the water due to high concentration of toxic blue-green algae called Cyanophyceae (the algal population increases in warm summer months). 

The water flows into the sea via an outlet channel from the Wildevoelvlei wetlands where effluent (liquid waste/sewage) is released from the Wildevoelvlei Wastewater Treatment Works (WWTW). Even though the WWTW treats the effluent and complies with Water Affairs license conditions, the phosphorus levels in the final effluent are still high which allows toxic algae to bloom.

We had crossed the channel with our bare feet, not knowing that it was toxic. Contact with the water can cause severe allergies, diarrhoea, vomiting, muscle pains and fever. Thankfully none of us were affected. 

Beautiful beach but contaminated water

Sadly, this is still an ongoing issue and we hope the proper authorities can find a solution to this as soon as possible.

Read More »