As you stand by the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront on your Cape Town holidays, you are surrounded by stunning views, worthy of any postcard. The skyline you will see is like no other, due to its three significant adornments – the flat-topped Table Mountain, the spired Devil’s Peak and the dome-shaped Lion’s Head. Such a magnificent backdrop is certainly worth a photograph or ten.

Table Mountain

Visible from almost every point you will go to on Cape Town holidays, Table Mountain is undisputedly one of South Africa’s greatest landmarks. Standing tall at 1087 metres, the sandstone mountain is one of a kind. Its flat summit, often immersed in cloud, can be reached by a cable car, which gives you a 360 degree view over Cape Town as you go up and down the mountain. A trip to the mountain plateau affords you some of the most spectacular views that South Africa has to offer, as you look out over a panorama encompassing Table Bay and False Bay, and stretching all the way around the mountain to Hout Bay. As well as enjoying the view, you are also likely to witness the mountain’s diverse wildlife, with a rich selection of flora and fauna that are endemic to the unique eco-system contained on Table Mountain. Keeping watch over the city, Table Mountain is a prominent part of the skyline of Cape Town. Holidays to the city that don’t incorporate a trip to the plateau are certainly incomplete.

Devil’s Peak

To the east of Table Mountain, Devil’s Peak’s spiky appearance leaves it standing in great contrast with its neighbouring mountains. Legends speak of pirates and smoke blowing competitions with the devil that not only resulted in the clouds that form around the peak but also afforded the mountain its name. Though it stands slightly shorter than its neighbour Table Mountain, Devil’s Peak offers just as magnificent a view. There is only one safe path to the summit, but if you are energetic enough to take it, you will be rewarded with yet another 360 degree view, showing you the best of one of South Africa’s most stunning cities. If your Cape Town holidays are incorporating Table Mountain, Devil’s Peak is definitely worth adding to the itinerary.

Cape of Good Hope

Widely recognised as an area of outstanding natural beauty that contains fascinating flowers and wildlife, the Cape of Good Hope is part of the Cape Peninsula Park and provides a wonderful escape from the more metropolitan side of Cape Town holidays. The location of the nature reserve – where two oceans meet – means that there are frequently strong prevailing winds. The combination of these winds and the sandstone soil in the area has resulted in some unique growing conditions, and an enormous variety of Cape Fynbos, or ‘fine bush’. In fact, with over 1000 species of fine bush, the Cape of Good Hope has one of the highest concentrations of this species in the world.

Cape Town holidays give you the chance to see some of the most fascinating flora and fauna in South Africa at ground level. But with the skyline surrounding Cape Town being one of the most impressive in the world, be sure to explore the heights of the surrounding mountains as well.

Rachel Hill is a specialist consultant with Southern Africa Travel, a company offering Cape Town holidays, as well as holidays to other destinations in Southern Africa. Our experienced consultants will help you design your very own luxury holiday, and will be happy to provide you with a free quote.

Cape Town holidays just aren’t complete without a visit to Table Mountain. The flat-topped sandstone mountain is synonymous throughout the world as a symbol of South Africa’s ‘Mother City’. To date, it is believed that over 18 million people have made the trip up the aerial cableway to the top of the mountain:

The largest point of the Table Mountain, Maclear’s Beacon, is located 1086 metres above the bay. Depending on the route you choose, climbing Table Mountain will take you anything from a three hour walk to a full day’s trek. Most people, however, choose to use the quicker aerial cableway, which allows them to reach the top in just under ten minutes. The cable cars have been built to cope with Cape Town’s strong south-easterly winds and the rotating floors ensure that all visitors are offered panoramic 360 degree views of the Mother City on the journey up. Once you reach the top, the views become even more spectacular and stretch from Table Bay to False Bay and around the mountain to the Hout Bay Valley and Kommetjie. On a clear day it is even possible to see across the ocean to the Cape Flats and the Hottentot’s Holland Mountains.

However, if you are taking your Cape Town holidays during the summer, you will usually see a thick white cloud engulfing the top of the mountain. The locals refer to this as the ‘tablecloth’, and tell the story of an eighteenth century Dutch pirate known as Van Hunks. After his life of crime had left him successfully rich, he took to climbing Devil’s Peak on a daily basis to relax and enjoy the view. His pleasure was further increased by smoking a pipe, and the pirate was particularly proud of the amount of smoke he could inhale without getting ill. One day a cloaked stranger challenged him to a smoking duel, and although Van Hunks won, the cloaked stranger turned out to be the devil and both of them soon vanished into a thick puff of smoke. Every year the two are forced to resume their smoking duel and the smoke becomes the tablecloth that lines Table Mountain.

Table Mountain has a unique eco-system and, on your Cape Town holidays, you will spot much unique flora and fauna. The mountain has over 1470 different species of plants, with 250 different types of daisies alone. Some plants such as the Silver Tree and the Disa Unaflora orchid are endemic to the area, and the ghost frog is an example of a reptile that is also found nowhere else on earth. An animal that you will see a lot of on your trek up Table Mountain is the rock dassie, which resembles a large earless rabbit, but whose closest living relative is actually the elephant.

At the top of Table Mountain is a shop where you can buy many different souvenirs of your Cape Town holidays, from cuddly dassies to scenic calendars and diaries. The shop also contains a post office, which you can use to send postcards bearing the famous Table Mountain postmark. As there are certain areas of the National Park that are designated for a ‘braai’ (the South African term for BBQ), you can even end your Cape Town holiday with a sunset barbecue overlooking the Atlantic. However, you might not want to create too much smoke, as you never know who may appear and challenge you to a smoke duel.

Rachel Hill is a specialist consultant with Southern Africa Travel, a company offering Cape Town holidays, as well as holidays to other destinations in Southern Africa. Our experienced consultants will help you design your very own luxury holiday, and will be happy to provide you with a free quote.

If you want to enjoy some sport on your Cape Town holidays, you’re in luck. Learn about 4 of the best sports to try whilst in South Africa’s capital.

4 Sports to Try In and Around Cape Town

With its unique location between two oceans and with the mighty Table Mountain looming in the backdrop, it is unsurprising that Cape Town is such a great place for sports and adventure travel. On the beaches, the oceans, the mountains and the stunning surrounding countryside, there is a hugely diverse range of sports and activities on offer for Cape Town holidays.

If you’d like to get active whilst visiting South Africa’s capital, here are four of the sports you should consider trying out.

Paragliding

With the panoramic views offered from the top of Table Mountain and Lion’s Head, it is no surprise that Cape Town is such a popular destination for paragliding. The area also has consistently excellent thermal currents, meaning that you get great gliding to go with your striking views.

If you are already an experienced paraglider, you’ll be able to rent equipment without a problem on your Cape Town holidays, but even if you are a total novice, you can still get involved. A number of places in Cape Town offer courses to get you qualified, where you undertake tandem flights with an instructor until you are skilled enough to go solo!

Surfing

Cape Town has long been known as a surfers paradise – it is regarded as having some of the best surf spots in the world. With so many beaches located on both sides of the Cape Peninsula, even if one break isn’t producing good waves, you are sure to find another nearby that does. Keep an eye out for Sunset Reef – it produces some truly staggering waves when the weather conditions are just right.

There are numerous surf schools and equipment shops all along the Peninsula, giving you plenty of opportunities to go surfing on your Cape Town holidays. Note that the water tends to be pretty chilly, and so a full wetsuit is usually required to surf for any length of time – surfers come for the quality of the waves, not the temperature of the water!

Horse Riding

Horse riding along a beach is a truly exhilarating experience, and Cape Town is an excellent place to go for a day’s riding – half day and full day rides are available from a number of stables in and around the city. Noordhoek’s Long Beach is regarded as being one of the best beach riding destinations in the world, but the lush landscapes around Cape Town and Table Mountain provide some excellent places to ride as well.

Scuba Diving

Cape Town’s coast is dotted with excellent dive sites. The Cape has always been a treacherous place to navigate, and so there are numerous shipwrecks to explore beneath the waves during your Cape Town holidays. But away from the wrecks, there are also soft corals, kelp forests, and an abundance of marine wildlife.

The dive sites on False Bay can be dived all year round, though in summer the visibility level can be poor. The Atlantic Ocean dive sites are usually visited in summer due to the colder water. There are almost too many sites to pick out highlights, but Smits Wrecks (with an astonishing five shipwrecks) and Oudekrall (with the spectacular Justin’s Caves) are two of the very best.

Rachel Hill is a specialist consultant with Southern Africa Travel, a company offering Cape Town holidays, as well as holidays to other destinations in Southern Africa. Our experienced consultants will help you design your very own luxury holiday, and will be happy to provide you with a free quote.

The coastline of the renowned Cape of Good Hope is home to countless numbers of barnacle-encrusted shipwrecks which litter the sea bed of this beautiful, yet treacherous headland. In the tiny Smitswinkel Bay alone, there are six known wrecks and your Cape Town holidays would not be complete without a visit to at least one site. Even if you’re not a keen diver, the history of many of these wrecks can be appreciated with a visit to the museums and maritime centres of Cape Town’s harbour. The mystery and happenstance which surround some of these unfortunate ships is legendary, and tales of conspiracy and ghostliness abound. Whether by nature or something a little more sinister, it certainly cannot be denied that the aptly named Shipwreck Coast has claimed more than its fair share of victims. Here are just a few…

The Lusitania

In April 1911, under the cover of darkness and in thick fog, the massive passenger ship, the Lusitania, carrying nearly 800 people, came to grief at Bellows Rock just beneath the lighthouse at Cape Point. Luckily, most of the passengers survived due to the fact that she remained wedged on the rocks for nearly two days after the impact. A dangerous break makes this suitable for experienced divers only, but it is a fascinating site to explore on Cape Town holidays. Although disorienting fog was blamed for the accident, there were reports from several passengers of seeing an apparition of a ‘ghost ship’ out from the headland just before they ran on to the rocks.

The Thomas T Tucker

Once again in a blanket of dense fog, and apparently at the mercy of a faulty compass, the Thomas T Tucker hit the rocks near Olifantsbos in 1942 on her maiden voyage. Even taking into account the fog and the mis-reading compass, a definitive reason for the collision was never found. Her cargo of arms bound for the Allies in the Libyan Desert had been earmarked as a target for the German U-boats, however, ironically it was the Cape who got them in the end. Although there was no loss of life, the ship broke into three pieces which remain today wedged in their watery grave.

The Flying Dutchman

Every destination in the world has its own collection of myths, legends and local lore which either strike fear into the hearts or, conversely, fascinate the generations of curious ghost hunters eager to prove or disprove the tales. Those who travel to South Africa on Cape Town holidays will invariably hear tell of the ghostly sea-faring tale of the Flying Dutchman. The legend goes that, gripped in the clutches of either madness or alcohol, a certain Dutch captain was attempting to round the Cape of Good Hope in the midst of a horrendous storm. Ignoring pleas from the passengers and crew, he pushed on in treacherous conditions refusing to alter his course. It is said that in the course of the ensuing mutiny, a shadow appeared before him and bestowed upon him a deathly threat if he did not retreat. The captain refused and was cursed that his ship would never round the Cape, but would sail for eternity with his ghostly crew, never gaining a moment’s peace.

The story of the Flying Dutchman, although perhaps in part a piece of much elaborated fiction, has been proliferated by the many reports of sightings of the spectral vessel over the centuries. Perhaps you may see her on your Cape Town holidays…

Rachel Hill is a specialist consultant with Southern Africa Travel, a company offering Cape Town holidays, as well as holidays to other destinations in Southern Africa. Our experienced consultants will help you design your very own luxury holiday, and will be happy to provide you with a free quote.