Some of the top attractions in the Cape Town area – Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Cape Point, and Boulders Bay – are not easily accessible by public transportation. In order to reach them, one must generally take a tour, hire a taxi, or rent a car. Having already familiarized ourselves with the rules of the South African road, we opted to rent a car for the day, which provided us maximum flexibility and minimum cost.

Kirstenbosch Botantical Gardens

Our first stop was the Kirstenbosch Botantical Gardens. Our guidebook proclaimed the gardens to be “among the most beautiful in the world.” It’s not hard to believe that to be true: the gardens are set among lush green lawns against the dramatic backdrop of Table Mountain. Approximately 9,000 of Southern Africa’s plant species are found there, ranging from the distinctive blossoms of the protea, South Africa’s national flower, to the welwitschia, a two-leaved plant endemic to only the northern Namib Desert that can live for up to 2,000 years, and including gardens dedicated to useful, medicinal, and edible plants.

Cape Point

Although we could have spent all day at the botanical gardens, we tore ourselves away and headed down to the Cape Point. Cape Point is a 7750-hectare section of Table Mountain National Park, featuring trails and wildlife, but we focused with the area around the Cape of Good Hope.

We started with the walk up Cape Point to the old lighthouse, which was built in 1860 and was later decommissioned after it was discovered that the lighthouse was too high on the mountain and couldn’t be seen through the fog.

After the lighthouse, we hiked out to the Cape of Good Hope. The hike, which took about 40 minutes each way, afforded us some amazing views.

As promised, the Cape of Good Hope was a more dramatic cape than Cape Agulhas – but it was also much more popular, and it was much more difficult to snap a photo without an errant stranger lurking in the background.

Various animals live in the Cape Point area, most notably baboons, which our guidebook warned us to never challenge. Upon arrival, we noticed a baboon perched on the roof of another car, and, during our hike, we crossed our fingers and hoped that we wouldn’t arrive to find the same scene. Luckily, the closest we got to the baboons was when a group of them came a little too close to the trail for my comfort – but these were being chased away by a park employee with a slingshot. On our way out of the park, we encountered some ostriches, which delighted us much more than the baboons.

Boulders Bay

On our way back to Cape Town from Cape Point, we stopped at the Boulders Bay penguin colony. Unfortunately, as in Bettys Bay, we arrived after the viewing area had closed for the night.

As we and some other tardy tourists were leaning over the fence, trying to catch a glimpse of the penguins, a guard directed us to a boardwalk that runs alongside the beach away from the viewing area. This ended up being more enjoyable than I imagine viewing the penguins from a defined area would have been: the penguins strolled freely along the same paths as us, often crossing right in front of our paths, and we had to share the experience with just a few other people.

It was lucky that we were scheduled to return the car in the morning because, on the way back to Cape Town we took the scenic Chapman’s Peak Drive and saw such an amazing sunset that we stopped multiple times to admire it.