Atlantic Seaboard
Sea Point to Hout Bay. Cold water, warm rock, and the coast road that most people remember longest.
Guides to this part of the city
What to see
Prestwich Memorial
The Prestwich Memorial on Somerset Road holds the remains of people exhumed from an unmarked burial ground a few streets away, uncovered…
Green Point Lighthouse
Green Point Lighthouse is the red-and-white banded tower standing on the shoreline at Mouille Point, first lit in 1824 and still in…
Clifton Beaches
Clifton is a sequence of four small Atlantic coves, known as 1st to 4th Beach, separated by granite boulders and backed by…
Victoria Road Atlantic Seaboard Drive
Victoria Road runs south from Camps Bay to Hout Bay with the Atlantic on one side and Table Mountain's western wall on…
Llandudno Beach
Llandudno Beach is a single curve of sand at the head of a granite cove, closed in by enormous boulders at both…
Camps Bay Beach
Camps Bay Beach is Cape Town's most accessible big Atlantic beach: one long, open sweep of pale sand with the Twelve Apostles…
Twelve Apostles
The Twelve Apostles are the chain of peaks and buttresses forming Table Mountain's western wall, rising above the Atlantic Seaboard between Camps…
Hout Bay Harbour
Hout Bay Harbour is Cape Town's busiest working fishing harbour, set beneath the Sentinel at the western end of Hout Bay. Fishing…
Walking from the coast
The Pipe Track
The Pipe Track is the path built to service the water pipeline running below the Twelve Apostles, and SANParks measures it as…
Tranquility Cracks via Corridor Ravine
Tranquility Cracks is a hidden maze of deep sandstone fissures high on the Twelve Apostles section of Table Mountain, filled with cool…
Corridor Ravine
Corridor Ravine is a hidden gem on Table Mountain's western slopes, ascending from the Pipe Track above Camps Bay into a lush,…
Kasteelspoort Trail to Diving Board
Kasteelspoort is one of the most popular routes up Table Mountain, famed for the iconic Diving Board — a dramatic overhanging ledge…
Chapman’s Peak Summit
A moderate but steep hike to one of Cape Town’s most iconic viewpoints, above the famous Chapman’s Peak Drive. Around 5 km…
Things to do
Seals at Duiker Island
Short boat cruises from Hout Bay harbour around Duiker Island, home to thousands of Cape fur seals. Boats circle the island and…
Scuba Diving
Try dives and guided dives from centres at the V&A Waterfront, Simon’s Town and Gordon’s Bay. A try dive runs theory, a…
Snorkelling
Guided snorkelling in the kelp forests of False Bay and the Atlantic seaboard. Wetsuit, mask, snorkel and fins are supplied, no certification…
Freediving
Freediving courses and try sessions in Cape Town. The entry-level course runs two days across theory, pool and open water, with a…
More about this area
Everything else in Atlantic Seaboard
Chapman’s Peak Summit
The Chapman’s Peak hike leads to one of Cape Town’s most iconic viewpoints, perched above the world-famous Chapman’s Peak Drive. Rising between Hout Bay and Noordhoek, it rewards you with sweeping views of the Atlantic, Hout Bay Harbour, the Sentinel, Long Beach and, on a clear day, all the way to Cape Point. It is […]
Prestwich Memorial
The Prestwich Memorial is a low single-storey building of brick and grey stone, standing on an awkward triangular site at the corner of Somerset Road and Buitengracht Street beside St Andrew’s Square. It is easy to walk past, and the largest lettering on it belongs to the coffee roastery that occupies much of the interior, […]
Green Point Lighthouse
Green Point Lighthouse is a small, sharply painted tower on the seaward side of Beach Road at Mouille Point, where the Atlantic comes straight up against the edge of the city. The tower is masonry, about sixteen metres tall, square rather than round, and wrapped in broad red and white diagonal bands. A railed balcony […]
Llandudno Beach
Llandudno Beach is a single curve of pale sand at the head of a granite cove on the Atlantic coast, wedged between Camps Bay and Hout Bay. Enormous rounded boulders form both ends of the bay and spill onto the sand itself, the slopes climb steeply on three sides, and the ocean fills the fourth. […]
Camps Bay Beach
Camps Bay Beach is one long, open sweep of pale sand on Cape Town’s Atlantic coast, and it is the city’s most easily reached big beach. Where Clifton hides four small coves behind granite, Camps Bay gives you the opposite: a single broad shoreline with nothing between you and the ocean, and a busy urban […]
Clifton Beaches
Clifton is not one beach but four, set side by side in a line of sheltered coves below the mountain on Cape Town’s Atlantic coast. They are known simply as 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Beach, and each is a separate crescent of very white sand divided from its neighbours by outcrops of pale granite. […]
Hout Bay Harbour
Hout Bay Harbour is Cape Town’s busiest working fishing harbour, tucked into the western corner of Hout Bay beneath the blunt rock face of the Sentinel. It is worth setting expectations properly: this is not a redeveloped waterfront. Boats are unloaded here, gear is repaired here, and people work here. Visitors are welcome and there […]
Victoria Road Atlantic Seaboard Drive
Victoria Road is the coastal road that runs south from Camps Bay to Hout Bay with the Atlantic on one side and the western wall of Table Mountain on the other. It is worth saying plainly that there is nothing hidden or undiscovered about it. Thousands of people use it every day for the commute […]
Twelve Apostles
The Twelve Apostles are the chain of rock peaks and buttresses that form the western wall of Table Mountain, rising above the Atlantic Seaboard between Camps Bay and Hout Bay. They are one of Cape Town’s defining landscapes, and it is worth being clear about what visiting them means, because there is no single Twelve […]
Oudekraal Nature Reserve
Oudekraal protects one of the Atlantic Seaboard’s most attractive natural coastal environments. Smooth granite boulders divide the shoreline into a series of small sheltered coves with sandy pockets between them, while dense kelp forests offshore support abalone, sea urchins and shoals of fish. The reserve also preserves a section of coastal fynbos, including ericas and […]