On the Tip of Africa - The Cape Peninsula

Head for the top of Table Mountain and the Cape Peninsula spreads below you, a dramatic finger of land jutting out 60 km into the ocean, bristling with peaks, fringed with rugged cliffs, coves and bays and pockets of suburbia surprisingly at ease in this stunning National Park, on the very edge of Cape Town.

It’s easy to forget the courage of early explorers as they sailed down the coast to round Africa’s most south-westerly point. Battered, as it was then, by the cool waters of the Atlantic, the western shore is peppered with exclusive villas – think Madonna, Beckham or Elton John - and sandy beaches such as Camp and Hout Bay, renowned for their seafood restaurants and romantic sunsets. Inland, the road climbs over craggy mountains, skirts vineyards and riding stables and, here and there, a thatched cottage straight out of rural England, before reaching the nature reserve.

Stretching from the west coast, with its rich ‘forest of kelp’, to the eastern shore and the usually calm waters of False Bay, these wild open lands are covered with fynbos, an ancient scrub with over 1000 indigenous plants, including the bright King Protea and orange Pincushion, making the Western Cape the smallest but richest of the world’s six floral kingdoms. The wild life follows suite. Ramblers might spot antelopes and zebras, ostriches, 250 species of birds and Chacma baboons who have bred here for a million years. Out at sea, Southern Right whales, dolphins and seals frolic in the waves.

Whatever the season, the weather may well take a turn for the worse when you approach the Cape of Storms, so called by the Portuguese explorer Dias who discovered it in 1488. Later Vasco de Gama renamed it the Cape of Good Hope, honouring the new passage to the East and its lucrative trading route. Africa’s most south-westerly point was long thought to be the meeting place of the Indian and Atlantic oceans, but this is in fact found 150 km or so to the east, depending on prevailing winds. Standing on the legendary Cape of Good Hope is awesome but even more spectacular is its neighbour, Cape Point, on the south-eastern tip of the peninsula. Come gale force winds or driving rain, redwing starlings twitter along the path all the way to the cliff top. Whether you walk up to the lighthouse or take the funicular, Cape Point truly rises like the end of the world, often drifting in low cloud and mist, parting now and then to reveal the last sliver of land edged with vertiginous cliffs. There is nothing ahead of you but vast churning waters melting into an ever changing sky.

After such untamed wilderness, the east coast greets you like a breath of fresh air with warm sheltered waters, sweeping sands and quiet villages with colourful harbours and cobbled streets. There’s Cork Bay, all ceramics and fishing boats, Fish Hoek, framed by mountains or Simon’s Town remembering its illustrious visitors, Nelson and Kipling. Just minutes away, a colony of jackass penguins live on Boulders beach, digging their nests in the sand, basking on the rocks, wobbling in and out of the water, untroubled by noisy Egyptian geese and cormorants. Fluffy babies peep out of the holes, the most endearing residents on the tip of Africa.

By Solange Hando

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