Jonkershoek Nature Reserve

Jonkershoek is where the Winelands stop being about farms. Nine kilometres out of town the valley narrows into steep fynbos-covered mountains, four rivers come off them, and the pools and waterfalls along those rivers are what most people are actually walking towards. Four marked trails run from a manageable 5.3 kilometres to an 18-kilometre day, […]

Jan Marais Nature Reserve

Jan Marais is the reserve you can walk to. It sits inside Stellenbosch, a few minutes from the centre, and it is the easiest place in town to give children an hour outdoors without getting into a car. There is a jungle gym and swings, a flat 1.7km perimeter path that works for small bicycles, […]

Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden

The Botanical Garden is the quietest thing in central Stellenbosch and one of the easiest to fit into a day. It is compact enough to walk in under an hour, and it is arranged to teach rather than simply to look pretty: sections set out South African biomes, medicinal plants and the university’s research collections, […]

Kogelberg Nature Reserve

De Hoop Nature Reserve

Harold Porter National Botanical Garden

Rocherpan Nature Reserve

West Coast National Park

Steenbras Nature Reserve

Steenbras Nature Reserve covers roughly 8 400 hectares of mountain country in the Hottentots Holland range above Gordon’s Bay, reached off Faure Marine Drive, the R44 coastal road, about 9 km from the town. This is a different order of place from the small urban reserves scattered across Cape Town’s suburbs. It is a working […]

Uitkamp Wetland Nature Reserve

Uitkamp Wetland Nature Reserve protects 32 hectares of seasonal wetland and surrounding lowland veld on Mosselbank Road, on the northern edge of Durbanville. It is a small reserve in a part of Cape Town that has been built over quickly, and the reason it exists has less to do with scenery than with what would […]