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.