The Cape Peninsula
Forty miles of mountain and ocean, ending at a lighthouse.
0 to 2 nights
The penguins at Boulders
Two thousand African penguins on a suburban beach.
A wild colony of endangered African penguins living among granite boulders at the end of a residential street in Simon's Town. The boardwalk puts you within a couple of metres of nesting birds.
They arrived in 1982, two breeding pairs, and nobody has been able to persuade them to leave since.
The colony sits on a sheltered stretch of False Bay shoreline at the end of a Simon's Town street, protected from the open ocean by a run of enormous granite boulders. The birds are entirely wild. They commute out to sea to feed and come back through the surf, up the beach and into nest burrows dug under the coastal scrub, largely ignoring the people watching them do it.
Getting there early
The car park fills by ten and the boardwalk gets slow. Half past eight is a different experience: the birds are heading out to feed, the light is behind you, and there is nobody in your photographs.
The conservation part
African penguins are the only penguin species that breeds on this continent and the population has fallen by roughly ninety-eight per cent in a century. The species was listed as critically endangered in 2024. Boulders is one of the few colonies that has grown rather than shrunk, which is why the boardwalks and the roped sections exist and why your entrance fee is worth paying.
The practical detail
- How long it takes
- An hour and a half, usually part of a peninsula day
- When it works best
- All year. February and March are the moult, when the birds stay ashore and the colony is at its busiest. Chicks are about from March to May.
- Who it suits
- No minimum age. Easy physically. Suitable for families. The boardwalk is flat, fully accessible and takes a pushchair. This is reliably the part of the peninsula day that children remember.
Good to know
Where it happens
Cape Town
A working city wedged between a mountain and two oceans.
4 to 6 nights
Itineraries that include it
4 days · 3 nights
Four Days in Cape Town
The city, the mountain and the peninsula, with a spare day for the weather.
7 days · 6 nights
The Classic Cape Week
The city, the peninsula, the Winelands and the whale coast, in one region.
8 days · 7 nights
A Family Week in the Cape
Penguins, a canopy tour, a boat and a beach, with the driving kept short.
7 days · 6 nights
A Cape Honeymoon
Seven days, two people, and a guide who knows when to disappear.
10 days · 9 nights
Ten Days in the Cape
The unhurried version, with time on the water and two nights on the coast.
Worth reading
Planning ·
The peninsula day, in the right order
Almost every visitor drives the Cape Peninsula the same way round, at the same time, and meets every coach in the Western Cape at Cape Point. There is no reason to, and the day is transformed by running it backwards.
Tell us this one matters
Some of these set the shape of a whole trip. Say which ones you care about on the enquiry form and we will build outwards from them.
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