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
Clarence Drive
Clarence Drive is the stretch of the R44 that leaves Gordon’s Bay and runs south along the eastern edge of False Bay, held between mountain slopes on one side and open water on the other. It is a public road rather than a built attraction, but it is one of the few roads in the […]
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 […]
Zandvlei Estuary Nature Reserve
Zandvlei is the reserve you go to rather than the one you look at. It covers about 200 hectares of vlei, estuary and surrounding wetland behind Muizenberg, and its defining feature is water you can actually use. The Zandvlei estuary is the link between this inland sheet of water and False Bay, and the reserve […]
Edith Stephens Nature Reserve
Edith Stephens Nature Reserve is small, urban and easy to underestimate. It covers 39 hectares beside Govan Mbeki Road in Philippi, and it exists for one specific reason. In 1955 the botanist Edith Stephens donated land here to protect Isoetes capensis, a quillwort the City describes as occurring nowhere else in the world. The City […]
Wolfgat Nature Reserve
Wolfgat is not a beach and it is not a hiking destination. It is 262 hectares of limestone cliff, dune and coastal scrub held between Mnandi and Monwabisi on the False Bay shore at Mitchells Plain, proclaimed in 1986 to protect one of the last undeveloped stretches of this coastline. The City describes the views […]
False Bay Nature Reserve
Most Cape Town reserves are a place you drive to. False Bay Nature Reserve is a system you move through. The City of Cape Town manages six separate parts as one reserve along the northern shore of False Bay, and the whole of it forms part of the greater False Bay Ecology Park. Where the […]
Harmony Flats Nature Reserve
Harmony Flats is the smallest reserve in the City of Cape Town network, nine hectares of flat ground wedged between Strand and Gordon’s Bay. It has no summit, no forest and no view worth the name. It is on this site because of what grows in it, and by that measure it is one of […]
Rondevlei Nature Reserve
Unlike Intaka Island’s constructed urban wetland, Rondevlei is a large natural freshwater reserve where visitors experience expansive reed beds, open water and indigenous wildlife in a much wilder setting. It is also the only place in the south-western Cape where hippopotamuses are still found. Rondevlei is one of six sections of the False Bay Nature […]
Glencairn Tidal Pool
Glencairn Tidal Pool sits beside Glencairn Beach on the False Bay coast. The City of Cape Town lists the pool at Glencairn Beach and identifies the beach from Main Road in Glencairn. The pool’s open coastal setting looks across False Bay, while the neighbouring beach and rocky shoreline give visitors several ways to experience the […]
Woolley’s Tidal Pool
Woolley’s Tidal Pool is a large rock pool on the False Bay coastline near Kalk Bay. The City of Cape Town lists the facility off Main Road in the Glencairn and Kalk Bay area. Its ocean-facing setting gives swimmers broad views across the bay. The pool sits within a rocky coastal platform and is separated […]