Cape Town Highlights

Eerie feel when visiting the prison on Robben Island.
The cable car up Table Mountain.
Sampling the dining options around the waterfront.

Quick Tips:

Spend some time in Cape Town, don't rush. It often takes a few days to see Table Mountain without clouds.

Best Way To Get Around:

Walking is a good way to explore the waterfront area.
The cable car is the ideal way to go up Table Mountain.

For those into the pub scene, try the supposedly Irish pub, Ferryman’s Tavern which has the very tasty Butternut Bake. With the restaurant on the upper level in this old restored wharf building, it is an atmospheric place for a drink, although the only thing Irish about it is that it has Kilkenny and Guinness beer!

For visitors to Cape Town the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront is the focus, an intermingling of its historic and useful past and modern developments aimed particularly at the increasing hordes of tourists. Fishing boats contrast with busking entertainers, tugboats with trendy restored warehouses, seals lolling on the jetty with bustling crowds, glitzy restaurants with construction cranes towering overhead. Dominating the backdrop is the domineering Table Mountain, its spectacular flat top often shrouded in hovering clouds.

A great area for wandering and shopping, the Waterfront area is also home to a plethora of restaurants and cafes many featuring local seafood on the menus. Many have verandahs which look out over the water.No matter whether it is breakfast or a late night romantic dinner there is a suitable eating place. Try Planet Hollywood, the Aquarium, a boat cruise or take a trip to Robben Island. Otherwise eat, drink and be happy.

It is from the jetties of the Waterfront area that a trip to Robben Island begins. Best known as the prison of apartheid and specifically Nelson Mandela, a tour provides a sad but moving tale tinged with hope for the future. A forty five minute boat trip across the harbour can be spectacular with views across the harbour to the looming mountain behind, assuming the sun is shining. The tour cost includes the return ferry trip and a bus tour around the island.

After passing the lime quarry, leper cemetery, the prison house of Robert Sobukwe, the rugged southern coast of the island with its accompanying tuna boat wreck, it is time to stop at the prison itself for a contemplative tour. Following the shock of finding out that today ex-prisoners and ex-guards and their families live together in the village on Robben Island (an example of improving the present rather than dwelling on the past), the guide is introduced as an ex-prisoner, who’d spent only five of his seventeen years there before being told one Friday lunch time, to be ready to leave the following day. No reason supplied.

Due to its remote location, Robben Island has often found itself a "human dumping ground." From the seventeenth century onwards, offense-causing Dutch, British, Moslem holy men and Afrikaner Nationals have found this island their home. Both lunatics and lepers were outcast there. However it is as a symbol of apartheid that this prison is known to most visitors. Most the buildings remain and the guided tour gives the opportunity to hear about and see places such as the tiny solitary confinement cells, dormitory cells, exercise yards, Nelson Mandela’s cell and even the grape vine under which Nelson Mandela hid the manuscript of his life story. Although found by the guards, a copy he managed to smuggle outside still formed the basis of his autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom." Surprisingly this harsh place was a place of learning and study.

Forming the backdrop at all times is Table Mountain, sculpted from sandstone. Rising 1086 metres above the bay its flat summit is nearly 3 kilometres from end to end. For the energetic it is possible to walk to the top but it is a good idea to take a guide as there are some 350 tracks and it is easy to become lost, especially if the cloud descends, as it often does.

For the less energetic, the cable car presents the preferable option. Opened in 1929, the cableway today takes about 600 000 visitors a year to the summit. The cable car trip offers stunning views across the bay and close-ups of the rock face as the car rotates a full 360 degrees during its six minute summit trip. Be warned though, the cable car may be closed down if the winds become too strong.

On the top, follow some of the walking trails to see some of the 1470 species of plants which call the mountain is home. Many show features typical of alpine plants, low growing stunted growth and narrow leaves. Endemic plants include the rare Silver Tree and the wild orchid, Disa uniflora. Abseiling is another option for the adventurous while on top.

However it is the spectacular view over the city and its beaches which leaves most visitors gaping in awe. Even the "locals", the rock hyrax or dassie, sit sunning themselves on the rocky ledges admiring the view.

Finally after wending and weaving our way along the mountainside we reach the flatter area, relatively speaking, of the Cape of Good Hope and its surrounds. Contrary to most people’s beliefs, the Cape of Good Hope is not the southernmost point in Africa. This honour belongs to the isolated and windswept Cape Aghulas, 300 kilometres further east. A lighthouse dominates the steep cliffs and rugged seas of the Cape of Good Hope, where a series of steep steps or a funicular railway lead from the car park and shops up to the lighthouse. A number of support buildings have also been restored which can be seen with a backdrop of the zigzagging coastline.

One of the best ways to get a feel for the area is to walk from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Point, past secluded bays, through the stunted vegetation, across massive cliff tops and at the mercy of the regions wind and rain or sunshine, whichever is happening at the time. With boardwalks and sets of steps it is a comfortable forty minute walk, allowing for lots of stops to admire the views, the taking of photographs or checking out the local wildlife.

Once again rock hyrax may be seen resting in the sunshine or darting between the rocks, but watch out for the local baboons. Having become used to the presence of visitors, they have become a real pest to the extent that they will take food out of people’s hands, or even steal cameras or backpacks. Be very careful and selective if you decide to have a picnic, or best of all post a guard.

At rugged, rocky Cape Point the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. It is also here at this treacherous promontory of rocks, winds and swells that many sailors, navigators and ships have met their dramatic end as the have tried to "round the Cape". Wrecks now litter the surrounding waters.