Most first time visitors to Cape Town and the Western Cape, make their way along fairly well-worn paths to favorite destinations; Table Mountain, the Cape Winelands, Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, Cape Point, the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront complex or Nelson Mandela’s Robben Island.
Known as one of the world’s most beautiful places, Cape Town and the Western Cape offers visitors gorgeous scenery and iconic attractions, but also some of the most unique and unusual leisure tourism experiences.
We originally packaged 2010 things you could do in our destination during the 2010 FIFA World CupTM, but we decided to lighten the load and brewed something special for you. Some ideas are totally frivolous, others original and timely reminders. Whether it’s the Cape Town International Kite Festival in Muizenberg, listening to a Cape Malay choir or parachuting over Citrusdal, at the very least it’ll get you thinking.
This list is a selection of 101 experiences - some firmly mainstream, others a little left of centre.
Here is a selection of 101 experiences:
1. Sip champagne at dusk on Table Mountain – best views of the city
2. Savour the taste and smell of Cape Malay dishes like denningvleis (‘a sweet and spicy lamb stew’) and pienang curry (‘an aromatic curry’) in the Bo-Kaap
3. Play 18 holes at any of the world class designer golf courses dotted all over the province
4. Follow the historic West Coast Mission Station Route from Mamre to Vredendal
5. Grab your camera or sketch pad and wander around the beautifully restored Victorian village of Matjiesfontein (in the arid Karoo), a national monument
6. Stay overnight on Table Mountain’s Hoerikwaggo Trail – a luxury mountain trail
7. At Cape Agulhas stand at the most southern tip of Africa - the official meeting place of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans
8. Visit a food market – Stellenbosch’s Slow Food market, Woodstock’s Biscuit Mill and Tokai’s
Porter Estate are as good – and different – as they get.
9. Join in the countdown to the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ and take a guided bus tour onto the soccer pitch of the Green Point Stadium, currently being built at the Green Point Common, Cape Town. Be entertained by the “GreensMan” one man-show - a dynamic, nostalgic, multi-media portrayal of the history of the Common.
10. Cycle through the Cape Winelands in autumn – enjoy the colourful autumn shades
11. Be dazzled by the wild Cape West Coast flowers in spring (July - October)
12. Get some retail therapy off the beaten track. Step back in history at one of the rural village shops .
13. Get down to live music and kultuur (‘culture’) at the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival at Oudtshoorn
14. Learn to make cheese in the Cape Winelands
15. Take a deep breath and abseil off Table Mountain – at 112 metres, it is the world’s highest commercial abseil
16. Don your hiking gear and follow the trail to the Maltese Cross or the Wolfberg Arch in the Cederberg
17. Kayak around Cape Point
18. Do the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour – the world’s largest individually timed cycling event
19.Taste roosterkoek, a scrumptious, freshly baked bread at one of our cultural museums. At festivals it’s also bound to be on the street.
20. See albatrosses and other seabirds on a pelagic birding trip south of Cape Point
21. Stand quietly at the kramat (‘a holy Muslim site’) on Signal Hill
22. Watch Shakespeare come alive at the annual Maynardville Fair in Cape Town
23. Enjoy the vibe at the most visited tourist attraction in South Africa, the V&A Waterfront
24. Follow a penguin on Boulders Beach or Stony Point
25. Eyeball a Great White Shark during a cage dive at Gansbaai
26. Brace yourself and cage dive with crocodiles in Oudtshoorn & pop into the Cango Caves
27. Take a 4x4 mountain safari trip on a legendary army truck to the spectacular Matroosberg Peak (247m –highest 4x4 route in the Cape)
28. Use a township B&B as your base for your stay & be enriched by the cultural experience
29. Ride a horse on a beach or in the vineyards
30. Visit the historic and iconic District Six Museum
31. Fish an acorn out of your wine while having lunch under the Stellenbosch oaks
32. Listen to the whales blowing as you drift off to sleep on the Cape Whale Coast (June– Nov) and meet the world‘s only whale-crier
33. Sample brandies in KWV’s famed Cathedral Cellar or explore the Brandy Route
34. Picnic to live music at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden
35. Learn about Khoi culture at Cape St Blaize Cave in Mossel Bay, then visit the Dias Museum and view a life-size replica of the pioneering Portuguese caravel that dropped anchor here in 1488
36. Try one of the Cape’s award-winning spas and soothe body and soul
37. Snap your fingers to The Cape Minstrels at the Tweede Nuwe Jaar (‘Second New Year, January 2’) street parade
38. Slurp oysters in Knysna
39. Feast on the local cuisine and the melt-in-mouth Karoo lamb
40. Stand in cell number five on the iconic freedom landmark, Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated)
41. Quaff wine at the Wacky Wine Weekend in Robertson
42. Take a donkey cart ride into the Swartberg
43. Ride an ostrich in Oudtshoorn
44. Muse on Khoi and Stone Age artefacts at Stilbaai or feed a tame eel
45. Take the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe from George to Mossel Bay
46. Stomp the divots at a polo match in Plettenberg Bay
47. Catch your supper at Witsand, a coastal town on the Cape Garden Route& Klein Karoo
48. Buy seeds at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden and start a fynbos garden at home. But the really big deal are the Gardens themselves – they have to be the most magnificent in the world.
49. Step off the Bloukrans Bridge, the world’s highest commercial bungee jump
50. Star-gaze in the Cape Karoo
51. Walk up Table Mountain’s Platteklip or Skeleton Gorge and take the cable car down - or vice versa
52. Immerse yourself in world class jazz at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival
53. Get strung out at the annual Cape Town International Kite Festival in Muizenberg
54. Visit South Africa’s famous Groote Schuur Hospital – where the world’s first heart transplant was performed.
55. Pick your own cherries, olives, strawberries, apricots, grapes and other luscious delights all year-round
56. Cycle the ABSA Cape Epic (Mountain Bike Race) or the Dirtopia in the Cape Winelands
57. Tuck into the flavour of “bokkoms” (dried fish) on the Cape West Coast
58. Haggle over something handmade at Greenmarket Square Market
59. Hire a 4x4 and get it dirty on a trail in the Hex River Mountains
60. Paddle an inflatable or a canoe down the Berg River
61. Dress for the occasion and strut like a peacock at the J&B Met horse race
62. Learn to kite-surf and throw caution to the winds at blustery Bloubergstrand in summer
63. Slip into an old-fashioned copper helmet and diving suit and become a temporary resident of the predator tank at the Two Oceans Aquarium
64. Catch live music at the Paul Cluver Amphitheatre – over Sir Lowry’s Pass from Cape Town, near Grabouw. It’s a gorgeous day out from the city (Cluver incidentally produces some of the country’s best white wines). Check out a What’s On guide to see who’s playing
65. See Cape Winelands garagistes (boutiques winemakers) at work
66. Enjoy a seafood meal at an open air restaurant on the beach
67. See in the New Year with fireworks at the V&A Waterfront
68. Grab binoculars and bird book and go twitching at Langebaan lagoon
69. Walk through the unique Cape Floral Kingdom – the smallest yet most diverse of only six in the world. Find a trail to walk; Fernkloof Nature Reserve outside Hermanus and the Kogelberg Nature Reserve – Hangklip-Kleinmond, where fynbos-covered mountains soar above crashing breakers, are worthy of mention
70. Block your ears on Signal Hill as the noon gun marks midday for the past 200 years. Then take a walking tour of Bo-Kaap, a colourful, culturally distinct area founded by slaves in the 17th century and inhabited largely by their descendents
71. Glide through the Outeniqua yellowwoods on a forest canopy - attached to a steel cable by a harness
72. Tuck into freshly fried fish, calamari and chips at any seaside village
73. Go back to school and learn to surf at Muizenberg
74. Feel a falconer’s power with a raptor on your arm at Spier’s Eagle Encounters centre
75. Spend a day soaking up the sun and watching beautiful people on Clifton’s Fourth Beach or enjoy a sunset picnic on Third Beach. Remember your sunblock
76. Skinny-dip in a remote mountain stream
77. Take in the crisp, clean air and total silence of the Cape Karoo in the village of Prince Albert
78. Experience the African sound and go drumming at various venues in the Western Cape
79. Catch talented, emerging bands live in Obs; (short for ‘Observatory’)
80. Immerse yourself in the vibe of cricket or rugby at Newlands
81. Enjoy a hearty “waterblommetjie” (small water flowers) stew in the Cape Winelands
82. Find out where they’re performing and hear a Cape Malay choir perform traditional songs, hundreds of years old
83. Learn to fly-fish, then catch and release a Clanwilliam trout
84. During the winter months stand amazed at the mating dance of the majestic Blue Cranes in freshly ploughed Overberg farmlands
85. Put away your map and watch, switch off your GPS and drive Route 62, the longest wine route in the world, from Cape Town to Haarlem. A week will allow you to savour small-town hospitality on the way
86. Stock up with fresh fruits, veggies and jams or preserves at the numerous road-stalls dotted throughout the province
87. Walk hand-in-trunk with an elephant on the Cape Garden Route & Klein Karoo
88. Listen to thousands of Cape Gannets on Bird Island off Lambert’s Bay
89. Soak away your cares in the healing waters of a number of mineral spas in the region
90. On a chilly winter’s night, sip port in front of a fire in Calitzdorp
91. Check out the so-called feather palaces, built during the ostrich feather boom at the turn of the century, like those in Oudtshoorn and Ladismith
92. At the Prince Albert Show, try your hand at counting sheep in a pen (not as easy as it sounds) and – if you dare – cow-pat chucking
93. During Bastille Week, don your tricolour, stock up on cheese and wine, and play boules in Franschhoek
94. Sip hot rooibos (‘red bush’) tea after veldskoen (‘soft-skin shoe’) shopping at Clanwilliam
95. Wander through a wonderland of geology and paleontology in the Karoo National Park and the Laingsburg Geological Walk
96. Travel back in time with the five-million-year-old fossils at the Iziko West Coast Fossil Park
97. Visit the brand new whale museum in Hermanus (the next closest one is in New Zealand)
98. Make the journey to dead-end Wupperthal in the Cederberg (Cape West Coast), a picture-perfect, time-stood-still village established two centuries back by Lutheran missionaries. Also once home to Louis Leipoldt, one of the fathers of South African literature.
99. Make your way to Knysna from Beaufort West on the N1. The road to Prince Alfred Pass (gravel road) is dead-quiet and beautiful, as is the Pass that gently ushers you into the holiday town
100. Feed the squirrels in the Company Gardens, near St Georges Cathedral
101. Take the 90 minute drive to 17th century Tulbagh, one of the first three settlements to be
built in the Western Cape, and possibly the most beautiful. Parts of it resemble a period-piece village.
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