The Beaches
Camps Bay, Clifton and Noordhoek, down the Atlantic seaboard.
This is where Cape Town spends its summer.
Camps Bay
The postcard beach, with the Twelve Apostles lining up behind it.
Clifton
Four beaches separated by granite boulders, each one down its own flight of steps from the road. Lion’s Head blocks the south-easter, so Clifton stays still through the summer. Fourth has held Blue Flag status for twenty years. First is the quiet one.
Noordhoek
You get there over Chapman’s Peak, cut into the cliff with the sea below it. Then the road drops onto Long Beach. Kilometres of open sand with almost nobody on it, and horses along the waterline.
The Kakapo is in the dunes, more or less buried depending on the season. A steamer that came ashore in 1900 when her captain mistook Chapman’s Peak for Cape Point in a gale. Every man aboard walked off onto the beach. South Africans will tell you this is the best beach in the country.
Our base is on the Sea Point Promenade, ten metres from the water. On the right morning the sea kayaks go in from there and we paddle south, around Bantry Bay, to Clifton. You land on the sand and beach picnic.
Cold Atlantic & open water
Sandstone & fynbos
Old vines, long tables
The Cape, up close
Further afield
Penguins, whales, fynbos
Plan a day on the sand.
Tell us when you are here and what pulls you. We will shape the day around you.