Boyes Drive

Boyes Drive is the road that runs along the mountainside above Muizenberg, St James and Kalk Bay, a good way up from the coastal road most people use. It exists largely as a local alternative to the Main Road below, and there is nothing remarkable about the road itself: two lanes, houses along one side in places, a low stone wall on the other. What makes it worth driving is the height. From up there False Bay stops being something you look out at from the water's edge and becomes something you look across, and the shape of the whole coastline is suddenly legible in a way it never is from sea level.

The classic run is short, from the Muizenberg end through to Kalk Bay, a few kilometres and ten minutes or so if you don't stop. The road climbs away from Muizenberg and the view arrives almost immediately: the beachfront and its long line of surf directly below, Zandvlei and the flat wetland country lying behind the coastal strip, and then False Bay opening out until the mountains on the far side close it off. As the road curves along the slope the perspective keeps shifting. The rooftops of St James and then Kalk Bay pass beneath you, the coast narrows to a thin strip between mountain and sea, and you can see exactly how tightly these suburbs are wedged into that gap. It is the kind of view that makes sense of a place.

In the colder months, roughly winter into spring, southern right whales come into False Bay, and Boyes Drive is one of the better places to look for them precisely because of the elevation. Looking down at the water rather than across it makes them far easier to pick out, and you can do it without a boat, a ticket or a crowd. It is worth being realistic: this is an opportunity rather than a guarantee, and plenty of people drive it in season and see nothing at all. That same elevation is what makes the road good for photography. From up there the beach, the wetlands, the coastal suburbs and the bay can be framed as a single landscape, which is close to impossible from the shoreline.

Keep the scale of it in proportion. This is not a half-day road trip and it is not trying to be Chapman's Peak. It works best as a short detour, or simply as the scenic way between Muizenberg and Kalk Bay when you would otherwise take the Main Road, easily folded into a wider False Bay day. It is a public road with no fee and no gate, but it is also residential in places, narrow and winding, with blind bends and cyclists who use it heavily. Stop only where there is a proper pull-off or parking area rather than on the road itself, and leave the driving to the driver. Most of the good looking here is done by passengers.