Private Cape Peninsula & Table Mountain Day Trip from Cape Town

Table Mountain by cableway

The day begins high. After a quick photo stop among the painted houses of Bo-Kaap, our driver takes you up Tafelberg Road to the lower station of the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, where your ticket is already included. The rotating cabins reach the summit in about five minutes, and at just over a thousand metres the whole of Cape Town, Table Bay and Robben Island lie beneath you. Paved paths lead to viewpoints over Camps Bay and the Twelve Apostles.

Your guide times the visit to beat the queues and keeps an eye on the weather, because the cableway closes in strong wind or cloud; if it is closed in the morning we can reverse the route and try again later in the day, something only a private tour allows. Allow about an hour at the top, longer if the view is clear and you want to walk to the far edge of the plateau.

Camps Bay, Maiden's Cove and Chapman's Peak Drive

From the mountain we drive down to the Atlantic seaboard and stop at Maiden's Cove, a rocky point between Clifton and Camps Bay with the classic view of the white beach, Lion's Head and the Twelve Apostles in one frame. The coastal road then runs through Llandudno and Hout Bay, where the fishing harbour sits beneath the Sentinel peak, before climbing onto Chapman's Peak Drive.

Chapman's Peak Drive is a nine-kilometre road cut into the cliff between Hout Bay and Noordhoek, completed in 1922, with more than a hundred bends and sheer drops to the sea. It is often called the most beautiful drive in South Africa, and on a private tour our driver can pull into the viewpoints whenever you ask. From the top the long white beach of Noordhoek stretches south towards the Cape of Good Hope.

Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve

The southern tip of the peninsula is protected as the Cape of Good Hope section of Table Mountain National Park, a wild landscape of fynbos, rocky shores and empty beaches where you may see ostriches, bontebok antelope, baboons and eland. Entrance is included, and your guide gives you the history of the cape that sailors first rounded in 1488 and that marks where the cold Atlantic begins to meet the warmer waters of False Bay.

The famous signpost at the Cape of Good Hope is the most south-western point of Africa, the photo everyone wants, with the Atlantic breaking on the rocks below. The true southernmost point of the continent is Cape Agulhas, further east, but it is here that the peninsula ends in cliffs and sea. Allow about two hours in the reserve including lunch at the restaurant near Cape Point or a picnic spot your guide recommends.

Cape Point and the lighthouse

Cape Point is the dramatic headland at the end of the reserve, where cliffs rise more than two hundred metres above the sea. From the car park you can ride the funicular railway to the old lighthouse of 1859 or walk up in about fifteen minutes; the funicular is optional and paid on the day. The old light stood too high and was often hidden in fog, so a lower lighthouse was built in 1919 at the very tip of the point.

The viewpoint at the top gives a sweeping panorama of False Bay, the Atlantic and the two oceans seeming to meet at your feet, with whales sometimes visible between June and November. The lighthouse walk and viewpoint take about forty-five minutes, and because the tour is private you can stay for the views or move on when you are ready.

Boulders Beach penguin colony

On the False Bay side of the peninsula, between Simon's Town and Cape Point, Boulders Beach is home to a colony of African penguins that settled here in the 1980s and now numbers in the thousands. Raised boardwalks lead through the coastal bush to viewing platforms a few metres from the birds, which waddle between the granite boulders, surf in the shallows and nest in the sand. Entrance to the colony is included in your tour.

African penguins are an endangered species, so visitors stay on the boardwalks and keep quiet near the nests; your guide explains how the colony is protected and the best spots for photographs. Mornings and late afternoons are the liveliest, with birds coming and going from the sea. Allow about an hour, including a short walk along the boardwalk to the main beach view.

Simon's Town and Muizenberg

A few minutes from the penguins, Simon's Town is a naval harbour town with a well-preserved Victorian-era main street, a working naval base and views across False Bay. We stop here for photos and a stroll along the waterfront, and if you prefer to have lunch here rather than at Cape Point, our guide can arrange it. Halal options are available in the area if you tell us in advance.

On the way back to Cape Town, the coast road passes Fish Hoek and Kalk Bay to Muizenberg, where a long sandy beach is famous for its colourful bathing huts and its shark spotters, who watch the water from the mountainside and raise flags to keep swimmers safe. After a photo stop we drive back over the mountain to your hotel, or to any other address in Cape Town, about ten hours after pickup.