False Bay
Warmer water, fishing harbours and penguins, along the coast the railway line still follows.
Guides to this part of the city
What to see
Steenbras Nature Reserve
Steenbras Nature Reserve protects roughly 8 400 hectares of Hottentots Holland mountain catchment above Gordon's Bay, off the R44. It combines the…
Clarence Drive
Clarence Drive is the R44 as it runs from Gordon's Bay to Rooi-Els along the eastern edge of False Bay, held between…
Gordon’s Bay Harbour
Gordon's Bay Harbour is a small recreational harbour in the eastern corner of False Bay, sheltered behind a breakwater with the mountains…
Kalk Bay Harbour
Kalk Bay Harbour is a compact working fishing harbour built into the middle of Kalk Bay village on the False Bay coast.…
Boyes Drive
Boyes Drive runs along the mountainside above Muizenberg, St James and Kalk Bay, high enough that False Bay becomes something you look…
Wolfgat Nature Reserve
Wolfgat Nature Reserve protects 262 hectares of limestone cliff, dune and coastal strandveld on the False Bay shoreline at Mitchells Plain, between…
Harmony Flats Nature Reserve
Harmony Flats Nature Reserve is the smallest reserve in the City of Cape Town network and one of the most significant. Its…
Edith Stephens Nature Reserve
Edith Stephens Nature Reserve protects 39 hectares of seasonal Cape Flats wetland at Philippi. It began in 1955, when the botanist Edith…
Things to do
Cape Point & Seal Island Eco-Cruises
Boat-based False Bay sightseeing from Simon’s Town, running north to Seal Island for the Cape fur seal colony or south along the…
Stand-Up Paddle to the Penguins
Guided stand-up paddleboarding sessions on the sheltered False Bay side of the Peninsula, launching from the Simon’s Town Boardwalk Centre for either…
Surfing
Surf lessons at Surfers Corner, Muizenberg, run from shopfronts on the beachfront. Board and wetsuit are included, and the wave there is…
Stand-Up Paddleboarding
Stand-up paddleboarding sessions on the sheltered canals at the V&A Waterfront and guided open-ocean paddles along the coast. Boards, paddles and buoyancy…
Golf
Clovelly Golf Club
Clovelly Golf Club sits in the Silvermine valley behind Fish Hoek, reached down a narrow suburban road that gives away little about…
Strand Golf Club
Strand Golf Club sits between the Hottentots-Holland range and the sandy shores of False Bay, and describes itself as striving to be…
Simon’s Town Country Club
Simon's Town Country Club sits on the slopes above False Bay in the historic naval town at the end of the peninsula,…
Walking
Everything else in False Bay
Stand-Up Paddle to the Penguins
Simon’s Town sits on the sheltered side of the Peninsula, which is what makes this work. False Bay here is calm enough that a first-timer can stand up on a board within a few minutes, and the operator runs guided sessions from the Simon’s Town Boardwalk Centre, on the water’s edge next to the False […]
Cape Point & Seal Island Eco-Cruises
Two boat trips run out of the same private marina in Simon’s Town, and between them they cover most of what False Bay has to show. The Seal Island cruise heads eight nautical miles north to the real Seal Island, a two-hectare rock carrying a large Cape fur seal colony along with seabirds and a […]
Quagga Rare Books & Art
Quagga has been on Main Road in Kalk Bay since 1990, dealing in rare and antiquarian books, antique maps, prints and ephemera with a Southern African emphasis. It is the anchor of the browsing strip that makes Kalk Bay worth an afternoon rather than an hour. The shop is open every day of the week, […]
Willis Walk
Willis Walk is one of the quieter finds on the peninsula. It is a coastal footpath connecting Bellevue Road in Simon’s Town with Kleintuin Road at Seaforth, running along the shore below the slopes. SANParks names it in its own park material. The important distinction is with Boulders. The penguin colony boardwalks at Boulders and […]
Strand Golf Club
The club runs a public visitor tee sheet from its own site, showing a fortnight of dates and rates with no account needed. There is also a find and pay tab for retrieving a booking you have already made. One thing to know before you look: the rate card is published only as a picture, […]
Simon’s Town Country Club
The layout is nine greens with alternate tees, numbered 1 and 10, 2 and 11 and so on, played twice for a full eighteen at par 66. The club publishes both nine and eighteen-hole rates, so a short round is a proper option here rather than an afterthought. There is no online tee sheet. Tee […]
Clovelly Golf Club
The club provides an official online visitor booking page. It states that the displayed and processed green fee is the non-affiliated visitor rate and that completed online payments are final and non-adjustable. The club does not publish a blanket weekend visitor rule on its visitor booking or rates pages. Check the live booking page or […]
Gordon’s Bay Harbour
Gordon’s Bay Harbour sits in the eastern corner of False Bay, sheltered behind a curving breakwater with the mountains rising almost directly behind it. It is a small, quiet harbour by comparison with Cape Town’s better-known waterfronts: mostly yachts, small motorboats and leisure craft on their moorings rather than fishing fleets or naval vessels. The […]
Kalk Bay Harbour
Kalk Bay Harbour is a small working fishing harbour set directly into the middle of Kalk Bay village on the False Bay coast. What defines it is the scale. There is no precinct to navigate and no distance between the harbour and everything around it: you turn off the main road, walk through a gap, […]
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 […]