The Cape Peninsula
Forty miles of mountain and ocean, ending at a lighthouse.
0 to 2 nights
Cape Point
A lighthouse on a cliff at the end of the peninsula.
The old lighthouse stands two hundred and fifty metres above the water at the tip of the Cape of Good Hope reserve. Get there before eleven and you have it more or less to yourself.
It is not the southern tip of Africa. That is Cape Agulhas, two hundred kilometres east. It is a far better place to stand.
The Cape of Good Hope section of Table Mountain National Park covers the last seventy-seven square kilometres of the peninsula: fynbos, ostriches, eland, bontebok, and some of the emptiest beaches in the country. Cape Point itself is a headland with the 1859 lighthouse on top, reached by a funicular or a ten-minute climb, and on a clear day you can watch the ocean colours change where the continental shelf drops away.
Timing it
The coaches arrive between eleven and two, and there is a version of this place at half past nine that most visitors never see. We run the peninsula loop clockwise whenever the wind allows, which puts you at the Point in the morning and sends everyone else past you going the other way.
The reserve itself
Worth more than the twenty minutes most people give it. The drive down from the gate crosses open fynbos with eland and bontebok in it, and there are two beaches on the way that are almost always empty. Dias Beach, at the foot of a wooden staircase below the Point, is one of the more spectacular places to stand in the Western Cape and takes about fifteen minutes to reach.
The practical detail
- How long it takes
- Half a day, or a full day combined with the penguins
- When it works best
- All year. Spring brings wildflowers across the reserve and whales into False Bay. Summer afternoons at the Point are windier than most people expect.
- Who it suits
- No minimum age. Easy physically. Suitable for families. The funicular removes the only real climb. There is a walking path to the upper lighthouse for anyone who wants it, about ten minutes and steep at the end.
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
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