Tours in Cape Town

Posts Tagged ‘Cape Point’

The view from the old lighthouse at Cape Point

With just over 30 days to go for the world’s largest event there is not much action from people who will be visiting Cape Town to book their tours.

Once you get here everybody and his friend will be wanting to see Cape Town’s highlights and then you might just find that you are unable to get on a tour on the day that is available to you while visiting the city.

There are a number of popular tours available in and around Cape town and if you get your bookings made early you will still get onto the tour of your choice on the day you want to go.

Over the next few days I am going to highlight the various tours available starting with the Cape Peninsula tour today. This tour comes in many guises and has many different names which I have included in the link below.
Click the link to book enquire about a tour today. Cape Peninsula Tour. Peninsula Tour, Cape of Good Hope Tour, Cape Point tour, Peninsula scenic tour, Peninsula sightseeing tour

All the above are basically the same tour. The average price of the tour is R680.00 per person, some operators charge more and some less. Beware of the operators who charge a lot less for this tour as they may not be licensed tour operators or you might have to pay the entrance fees yourselves. If you find a scheduled tour which costs more than R680.00 per person check the itinerary to see what has been added to or included in the tour to make it more expensive. Sometimes operators include a lunch at a restaurant with a set menu.

During June and July when the world cup is being staged Cape Point might become rather crowded as all Peninsula tours normally arrive there around lunchtime. Traffic could be a real problem so you might find that some operators do the tour itinerary I am going to show you below in a different sequence to the normal routes.

The view from Maidens Cove over Camps Bay

Here is a normal scheduled tour itinerary.

Pickup at your city hotel between 8.00 am and 9.00am. Drive through Sea Point along the Beach road if there are no pickups in Sea Point and then along Victoria road through bantry Bay to Maidens Cove where you stop for a quick photo stop. (This stop depends on time available to get to Hout Bay)

From Maiden’s Cove you travel through Camps Bay and along the Atlantic coastline to the Hout bay harbour where there is an optional boat tour to Seal Island to see the Cape Fur Seal colony.

Hout Bay harbour

The cost of the boat trip is around R60.00 per person for a 45 minute cruise out onto the Atlantic Ocean and to Seal Island. (recommended)

After your cruise you leave Hout bay and travel through the incredible Chapman’s Peak drive to Noordhoek. In the winter months Chapman’s Peak could be closed then the alternative route over Constantia Nek is used.

From Noordhoek the tour could take one of two directions, either through Simonstown to the Boulders to see the penguins ( Another optional extra if you want to enter the penguin reserve. You can however see the penguins without the additional cost. Just ask your guide to show you where to go)

Cape of Good Hope the most south western tip of Africa

The normal route from Noordhoek however is along the Atlantic Coastline via Scarborough to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve where you will visit the Cape of Good Hope for a quick photo stop at the most South Western point of the African continent.

The view from the carpark of the old lighthouse at Cape Point

From there you will drive to the car park at Cape Point where you will be given time to climb the Cape Point Hill to see the spectacular views. You can also use the funicular to the top if you feel that the hill is to steep for you. The cost of the funicular will be for your own account.

The Flying Dutchman funicular at Cape Point

Most Peninsula tours stop here for lunch at the Two Oceans restaurant. Their food is good and service is quick. Lunch is for your own account. Your tour guide on the day will arrange a table for the tour group at the restaurant before you get there so normally you will not have to wait to be seated.

The tour leaves Cape Point after lunch and starts wending its way back to Cape Town either via Scarborough or Simonstown depending on which route you used to get to Cape point.

On the way back to the city most tours stop at the world renowned Kirstenbosch Gardens where you can enjoy a walk around the peaceful and beautiful gardens. There is a shop and restaurant at Kirstenbosch where you can do some shopping or have a quick cup of tea before boarding your bus back to the city and your hotel.

What is included in the tour price.

All entrance fees.

Airconditioned minibus and registered tourguide.

Excluded from the tour price.

Boat trip to the Cape Fur Seals

Entry into the Boulders penguin reserve.

Funicular at Cape point

Lunch and snacks.

To enquire or to book a tour email Toursincapetown at tourinfo@turtlesa.com

We would love to hear from you and arrange your tour.

Other tours available.

Winelands,  Best of Cape , City Tour,  Cape safari.

Click here to enquire about any of the tours listed above.

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Cape Point

The West Coast of Southern Africa stretches from Cape Point the most south western tip of Africa to the mouth of the Orange River on the Namibian border.

The coastline is a very interesting one and over the next few months I will try and enlighten folk on different places you can visit along this interesting coastline.

The whole coastline is washed by the Atlantic Ocean and the cold Benguela current. The current,  a branch of the west wind drift of the Southern Hemisphere,  flows northwards up the coastline from the deep south ( close to Antartica) until it nears the Equator where it merges with the Atlantic South Equatorial current and then flows westwards towards the Americas.

During the summer months the Western Cape’s southern and western coastlines are buffeted by strong southerly and southwesterly (we know them as the south easter) winds which produce an upwelling of water with a cool temperature and relatively low salinity. These upwellings have a high concentration of plankton and thus create excellent fishing grounds with an abundance of fish.

Yzerfontein harbour

Snoek is the main catch and is landed for about nine months of the year commencing in June and going through to March.  Sixty percent of all line fish caught on the west coast is landed at Yzerfontein which is the main fishing harbour on the west coast.

Between Cape Point and Saldanha Bay there are only four fishing harbours which can be utilised by small boat fishermen to land their catches.

They are Hout bay, Granger Bay, Yzerfontein and Saldanha Bay.

Granger Bay pointed out by the red arrow

Granger Bay situated on the Table Bay coastline less than two hundred metres from the new Cape Town stadium is the smallest of the harbours and has a small slipway and very little parking for fishermen’s vehicles and their trailers.

A year or two ago there was great consternation when the authorities decided to close Granger Bay thus cutting off any access to Table Bay for fishermen.

Closing the only slipway with access to Table Bay for the fishermen would have meant that the fishing boats would either have had to launch at Hout Bay harbour and make their way along a very dangerous coastline by sea to gain access to their fishing grounds near Robben island.

Hout Bay harbour

The alternative to Hout Bay was to drive all the way to Yzerfontein (about 90 kilometres from Cape Town) to launch and then to make their way back by sea to Table Bay to fish near Robben Island and then with fully laden boats have to make their way back to Yzerfontein to land the catch.

Fortunately an agreement was reached and Granger Bay remained open.

With the World Cup playing itself out at the Cape Town stadium during June and July and the closing of roads in and around the stadium from early May until mid July I can see another clash looming between the fishermen and authorities as Granger Bay will once again be closed to fishermen during the fishing season.

The authorities have set up an exclusion zone around the stadium and fishermen will most probably not be allowed to enter it.

I don’t think anyone has given Granger Bay or the fishermen a thought but they had better wake up if they don’t want fishermen parking their boats and trailers across the Western Boulevard during the world cup and stopping all traffic going to the stadium if they cannot gain access to their fishing grounds.

The west coast is a great place to visit but it is not the best place for a football stadium to be built. Green Point where the new stadium is located is not on any public transport routes. Access to the area is difficult with normal motor traffic without a world cup event playing itself out.

During the world cup event and especially on match days the Western Boulevard and Somerset road leading to the stadium will be closed to the public which is likely to cause havoc on all the approach roads to the city.

Not even the fishermen with their boats will be allowed to enter the area. Can you imagine the chaos and the language if a fisherman is told to go to Hout Bay when there is a snoek run off Robben Island and he wants to launch from Granger Bay.

Thankfully its not my problem although I might just get caught up in the traffic jam.

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