Cape Point

Cape Point forms part of the Table Mountain National Park and attracts over 200 000 tourists a year who come to admire this wonderful stretch of coastline. Just an hours' drive from Cape Town, we spent the day exploring this Natural World Heritage Site and the surrounding area.

We started by taking the funicular up the hill to the lighthouse. The Flying Dutchman, as it's called, offers some great panoramic mountainous and sea views as you make your way up the hill.

Once at the top you can go up to the Old Lighthouse which functioned from 1859 to 1918. Unfortunately the old lighthouse was built too high and when the Point got covered in mist, the lighthouse couldn't be seen. After a passenger ship from Portugal got wrecked on Bellows Rock just off the point, it was decided to build a second lighthouse lower down.

You can take a walk along the point to see the new lighthouse which has been in operation since 1919. The scenery all along the walk is breath-taking, and the many viewpoints offer great vantage points to admire this wonderful area.

We headed back down and took a short drive to the Cape of Good Hope. When sailors travelling down the west coast of Africa saw the Cape, it marked the point at which the ship began sailing more eastward than southward offering sailors hope of their destination.

For many years, Cape Point was considered the southernmost tip of Africa. That honour goes to Cape Agulhas. But don't let that stop you from visiting this amazing landmark. The views are amazing and it's easy to sense the excitement that sailors rounding the Point must have felt as they travelled across the world.