The wonders of Cape Town: Natural Beauty, Beaches and Penguins

A fabulous waterfront hotel. One of the world’s great cities. And amazing nature close at hand, including tiny, adorable penguins.
Cape Town is one of the world’s most amazing cities; a place that truly does offer something for travellers of every style and every age.
I recently spent three nights and days in the area, thanks to the folks at Goway Travel, and was overwhelmed by the variety of experiences and the vibrancy of the city.
I was able to bed down for three nights at the posh Victoria and Alfred Hotel, which is located on the bustling V and A Waterfront. Many of the rooms offer views of the beautiful harbour and of gondolas snaking their way up Table Mountain, one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks (more on that later).

A room at the Victoria and Alfred Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa. JIM BYERS PHOTO

The rooms are lovely, large and understated, with some exposed brick walls and colourful architectural bits. We had a great bed, an enormous shower, a separate tub and very good work space; always an important factor on the road.
The breakfasts are spectacular, with everything from omelettes and egg dishes to a buffet featuring sparkling wine, oysters, smoked meats such as ham, prosciutto and chicken, roast beef, as well as local cheeses. If that’s all too much for you in the morning, you can always keep it simple with yogurt, fresh fruits, flaky croissants and cereals.
On top of that, the views of the harbour and Table Mountain from the breakfast space are amazing.
The hotel is directly connected to a fine shopping arcade, with shops selling beautiful jewelry, African crafts and other items.
Right next door is an upscale food market, which has a sign outside saying “No Hipsters.” Inside you’ll find a wide array of options; everything from tacos to pizza to Southeast Asian cuisine and a shop specializing in tasty, South African dried meat, or “biltong.” Sadly, you’re not supposed to bring it back to Canada, but I sampled several types, including beef and antelope, and thought it was terrific.

The Cape Wheel on the V and A Waterfront in Cape Town, South Africa. .JIM BYERS PHOTO

There were amazing entertainers out front most of the times I walked by.
Just past that is an airy, modern building that features more craft shops, a lovely coffee place and shared work-space offices. You’ll find tons of young people typing away on their laptops as they sip coffee lattes and flat whites and gaze out the windows at the passing scene.
The waterfront also features a massive shopping mall with upscale clothing shops, a wildly popular Krispy Kreme doughnut store and a massive basement operation called Pick n Pay, where you can buy groceries, a huge variety of South African wines and much more. I found their wine prices to be the best of any place we visited on the trip.
The harbour also offers activities that range from whale watching tours to pirate boat rides. The Cape Wheel is a beautiful Ferris Wheel that offers amazing views of the waterfront and Table Mountain. There’s also a fine aquarium.
The V and A Waterfront is a colourful, busy and extremely safe area with gleaming, open-air restaurants, shops and nearly constant entertainment, including wonderful singers and dance troupes (SEE VIDEO HERE) that always drew big crowds to the area around the Cape Wheel. It seemed to be packed 24 hours a day.

You’ll get a great view of Cape Town Beaches on the Red Line tour from the city’s Hop On and Off Bus company. JIM BYERS PHOTO

My wife and I wandered a few meters down the road from the Victoria and Alfred Hotel and found the city’s Hop On/Off Bus depot. We bought tickets for the Red Line tour and enjoyed a terrific, open-air tour of the city. We stopped briefly at the colourful Bo Kaap area, where you’ll find a number of mosques and wildly colourful houses painted bright lime green, Pepto Bismol pink, French’s Mustard yellow and other vibrant shades.
We also cruised past stunning beaches and fashionable waterfront neighborhoods, which I hadn’t heard of before. Our tour guide said that, back in the day, some of the beach areas were considered too far away from town and were undesirable. The city was so desperate to get people to settle outside the downtown that some folks were paid to move out to the beach to houses that now command a million dollars or more. Some even call the region “Millionaire’s Paradise.” Amazing.
Like most travellers, I had heard of Table Mountain and wanted very much to take the gondola to the top. I expected great views of the city, and I had them. But what I didn’t realize is that the view also includes the city’s coastline, rocky cliffs that drop straight down and distant views of the Cape of Good Hope.

Take the gondola to the top of Table Mountain for amazing views. JIM BYERS PHOTO

Another thing that struck me about Cape Town is that it’s quite reasonably priced. I went out for a pizza one night and paid less than $11 CAD for a very large pizza piled high with tasty Parma ham and arugula. A nice glass of wine at a pretty sidewalk café was just 45 South African Rand, about $4 CAD.
We didn’t go out for any fancy meals, instead saving money by dining at V and A waterfront places for Italian food and a good burger place called Gibson’s.
We didn’t have time to check out some of the nearby seaside villages, such as Hermanus. And we didn’t make it to Robben Island, an historic prison site where Nelson Mandela spent many of his years in captivity. But we did manage a terrific Cape of Good Hope peninsula tour that went on almost all day.
We toured along past beautiful seaside villages that looked like Malibu or La Jolla in California, with posh shops and stunning beaches. The mountains here are quite close to the coast, so it’s a very dramatic look.
One of our first stops was to take a boat ride to check out an island packed to the gills (so to speak) with barking, raucous sea lions near Hout Bay. Not only were they fun to watch, but the surrounding hills were lit up with a beautiful light.
From there we wound our way along one of the world’s most dramatic driving roads, Chapman’s Peak Drive. I’d never heard of it, but for my money it’s even striking and dramatic than Highway One in California or the famous Road to Hana on Maui, with narrow, curving roads carved out of jagged brown rocks high above the blue ocean. Quite amazing.

A view of Hout Bay on the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. JIM BYERS PHOTO

From there it was over to the other side of the cape to see a huge colony of African penguins at Boulders Beach, just outside Simon’s Town. (CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO). I had no idea there were penguins in South Africa, but the beach here is filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of them. If there’s a more adorable animal in the world, I haven’t seen it. My wife and I, and pretty much everyone within sight, was mesmerized by these tiny critters, who waddled back and forth along the sand for a half-hour while we stood and watched. Every once in a while, one of them would decide it was time for a swim, and a group of five to 20 of the little critters would suddenly make an awkward, penguin-style dash for the ocean and then dive gracefully into the blue-green waves.
After a nice lunch at an outdoor café, we wound our way down to Cape of Good Hope National Park, where we posed for the requisite photos at the Cape of Good Hope sign and looked around. We also spotted baboons off in the distance and, at the side of the road, maybe five feet from our bus, a massive ostrich.

Penguins at Boulders Beach in South Africa. JIM BYERS PHOTO

Our guide, Robbie Maretekway, said there are roughly 350 troops of baboons in the park, each with 15-35 animals.
“They can certainly ruin a picnic,” he said with a smile.
Our bus dropped us off at the bottom of a hill next to the New Cape Point Lighthouse. Some folks opted to walk up the hill to check it out, but I decided to wander about near the bus. And I was so glad I did, as I discovered a stunning coastal trail that winds down to one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen, Dias beach, which was named for Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias, who came this way in 1488 (and whose relatives probably wish he’d invested in local real estate). The sand is a brilliant shade of white and there are weathered, eroded “haystack” hills that folks can climb and take photos of for great Instagram shots. I didn’t have time to get to the beach, and the water can be a little rough I was told, but the views were magnificent, both of the beach and the rocky coastline.
On the way back to our hotel we stopped for an hour at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, which is on the back side of Table Mountain from downtown. It’s a massive garden (524 hectares) that dates back 106 years and features everything from amazing, South African proteas to pale yellow and blue birds of paradise; a striking contrast to the orange and blue ones, which are the only kinds I had seen before.
Our tour guide pointed out amazing trees and flowers all around us, and we admired some odd-looking ducks and other birds as we walked. There’s a huge lawn area and a concert stage where they do musical performances with Table Mountain as a backdrop, and it looks like an unforgettable concert spot.

Dias Beach on the Cape of Good Hope. JIM BYERS PHOTO

We missed the waterfall that’s higher up on the hill, but we also did a brief walk on a beautiful, wooden walkway that takes you on a brief tour of the tree canopy, again with the rugged outline of Table Mountain looming overhead as dusk approached.
I must admit I didn’t know nearly enough about Cape Town before I went. But it was truly remarkable. So, thank you to Goway for a great introduction.
And here’s hoping I make it back some day.
NEXT UP: The gorgeous (and tasty) Franschoek wine region (just north of Cape Town), followed by a story focussing on our remarkable experience with the animals of Greater Kruger at the Sambaku River Sands lodge outside of Hoedspruit, up in the northeast corner of the country.