CAPE TOWN'S BEST BEACHES
Cape Town’s Top Beaches namely Clifton Camps Bay, Llandudno, Hout B
Cape Town's best beaches, Clifton, Camps Bay, Llandudno, Hout Bay and Noordhoek are on the Atlantic and close to Cape Town.
Most of Cape Town's best beaches, namely, Clifton, Camps Bay, Llandudno, Hout Bay, and Noordhoek, to name a few, are on the Atlantic located in upscale suburbs less than an hour’s drive from the city.
Clifton's scalloped cove is strewn with giant granite boulders dividing it into four separate beaches. Steep cliffs dotted with expensive beach bungalows and high rise apartment buildings provide a glamorous urban backdrop to the trendy beach scene. Sunset picnics on Clifton beach are a Cape Town tradition. Despite having to carry heavy picnic baskets down steep and narrow steps it is worth it once you’ve settled in enjoying a glass of crisp sparkling wine, a slice of baguette with pate, the fresh ocean breeze and the warmth of the setting sun. On Clifton Beach everybody feels like a millionaire or a member of an exclusive club; and lucky to be living in Cape Town. It is the perfect place to begin or rekindle a romantic love affair with the world’s most beautiful city.
A few kilometers past Clifton Beach lies Camps Bay Beach alongside a strip of fashionable bars, restaurants, clubs and a 5 Star Hotel, which makes it a preferred overseas tourist destination. Accessible from the road across across a grass strip dotted with a row of palm trees, it is a favourite venue for beach volley ball tournaments and other organized events. Since it is open and exposed it can get very windy in summer when the Southeaster howls, whipping up sand and seaspray.
Flanked by clusters of giant granite slabs, reminiscent of the Seychelles, Llandudno, just a few minutes further south along the Atlantic coastal road, is one of the most idyllic beaches in the world. Encircled by exclusive residential enclave devoid of commerce and traffic with only one road leading to the beach, parking and access is limited. Llandudno, therefore, is more private and serene, and less crowded. The water here is especially clear, clean and cold – almost glacial. Swimming can be dangerous and surfers respect the steep, hollow waves pounding the shore.
Hout Bay is a postcard cliché: flanked by a small harbour and fishing village built on the slopes of The Sentinel, and one of the most scenic roads - Chapman’s Peak Drive - miraculously carved into cliffs, it is almost completely encircled by mountains, giving the impression of an Italian lake. While water and sand aren’t as clean as other beaches, because of the harbour and dog-walkers, the dramatic setting and the many nearby restaurants and bars make for a lively social scene. Sailing, motorboating, jetskiing and surfskiing are favourite activities in this sheltered, but not windfree bay. The working harbour is the home of a thriving tour and charterboat industry.
On the other side of Chapman’s Peak Drive is Noordhoek Beach, the longest and widest beach in Cape Town by far. Because of its scale, it is less intimate than other beaches, and is popular with horseback-riders. Parking is not a problem and access is easy, but the water’s edge is a long-haul destination. There are very few sheltered areas and no shade, except the little cove on the far right below Chapman’s Peak Drive.
On the false Bay, the best beach on the Indian Ocean side of the peninsula, is Boulders Beach, with its maze of house-sized boulders, famous for the thousands of penguins that have come to live and breed there. A walkway intersects the marine park and the various coves are easily reached by foot. This is not a surfing beach, and the main activities are swimming, sunning and penguin-watching.
