The Whale Coast and Overberg
Whales below the cliff path, and a forest gorge on the way there.
1 to 3 nights
Zip lining in the Overberg
Thirteen slides through an indigenous forest gorge above Elgin.
A canopy tour on the Hottentots Holland side of the mountains, an hour from Cape Town. Thirteen platforms, the longest slide around three hundred metres, all of it above a forested gorge with a waterfall running under it.
An hour over Sir Lowry's Pass and the Cape stops being a coastline and becomes a forest.
The canopy tour sits in a gorge in the Hottentots Holland mountains above Elgin, in a pocket of indigenous Afromontane forest that survives because the terrain is too steep to have been farmed. You are harnessed, briefed and walked to the first platform, and from there it is thirteen slides down the gorge, with a guide going ahead of you and a second one behind.
What it is actually like
Less extreme than it sounds. You sit into a harness and the cable does the work, the guides brake you at the far end, and the longest slide takes about twenty seconds. What people remember is the gorge rather than the adrenaline: it is genuinely beautiful in there, with a waterfall under one of the middle crossings and yellowwoods either side of you.
Fitting it in
It works either as a morning out of Cape Town or, better, as the first half of a day that ends in the Elgin valley with lunch and an apple farm, or carries on over to Hermanus for the afternoon.
The practical detail
- How long it takes
- Half a day, about three hours on the cables plus the drive
- When it works best
- All year. It runs in light rain, which in the Cape winter is most of the good days, and stops only in lightning or high wind.
- Who it suits
- Minimum age 7. Moderate physically. Suitable for families. Minimum age seven and a weight range of roughly thirty to one hundred and twenty kilos, both set by the operator and both firm. There is a short walk between some platforms. No experience needed and nobody has to jump off anything.
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
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.
10 days · 9 nights
Ten Days in the Cape
The unhurried version, with time on the water and two nights on the coast.
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