Cape Town: Cape of Good Hope & the Penguins

June 2022

The Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve (admission: about $22) was a 90 minute drive south from Cape Town. We went there using a car service (about $300 for the all day service in a 12 person van) we learned about through gettransfer.com.

The dark brown symbols show where we’ve been, the others are possible points of interest

Within the reserve, we first went to the Cape Point Lighthouse where we took the funicular (about $5 R/T) up to have the incredible view seen below.

We drove about 2.3 Km to go to the Cape of Good Hope with the famous signage. Like many people, I knew the Cape of Good Hope as the southern tip of Africa, but it was not. So now the sign says, “most south-western point” of Africa. No matter. Every single visitor wanted a photo hugging the sign so someone cleverly expanded the sign with two wings to shorten the waiting time.

Lunch was at a little French cafe in Simon’s Town (population: 6,500) called Lighthouse Cafe. The delicious meal in cute French country style ambiance was never captured because we were all too hungry. Priorities.

Another major attraction in the area were the penguins. A pair of penguins were brought to Boulders Beach in 1982 for breeding, and now there are 3,000 of them just hanging out. The admission fee of about $4 to the colony was totally worth it.

We took the scenic Chapman Peak Drive, a toll (about $3) road, on the west coast on the way back.

We stopped at the viewpoint overlooking Haut Bay. I was looking forward to getting some sea food from the Bay Harbour Market, but it was closed by then. The driver took us to a huge supermarket where we found all sorts of goodies on the way home, and we were happy.

itinerary: Johannesburg -> safari -> Victoria Falls -> Cape Town