My travel companions were Taiwanese, who are generally not great lovers of the outdoors. Finding someone to hike with was always easy. Most hiking paths in Taiwan are shaded by trees, so they assumed hiking in Cape Town would be the same. Kayaking and paragliding was a little harder. Getting someone to go swimming was damn near impossible.
We had a backyard swimming pool in Durban. No such luck in Cape Town. The backyard was large enough for a pool. The neighbor to our immediate right had one. We did not. Fortunately, Cape Town has plenty of beaches.
Cape Town beaches are usually divided between the Atlantic side and Indian side, even though the Indian Ocean does not actually touch Cape Town. Since all of the coasts are on the Atlantic, it would be more accurate to divide the beaches between the western peninsula and False Bay. No one does, though. Everything on the west coast is considered the Atlantic side while False Bay is the Indian side. The only reason it makes any sense is because the protected water in False Bay is much warmer than the wide open and cold Atlantic coast.
Our house was in Simon's Town, which is on False Bay, the “Indian” side. We pretty much all went to Boulders Beach, mostly because it is near the penguins. The beach itself is small and has far too many rocks to be anything other than scenic. That often means secluded. Unless it is right next to the only penguin colony in Africa anywhere near a city. The best thing Boulders has going for it, other than penguins, is the warm water. Not only is False Bay warmer than the Atlantic, but Boulders and Foxy Beach are in a bit of a cove. They are sheltered from the sheltered water. There are several tiny beaches in the Simon's Town area. Most of them look like Boulders and have the same combination of sand and giant rocks.
Just north of Simon's Town is Fish Hoek Beach, a full service beach with changing rooms, showers, lifeguards, and shark spotters. The town of Fish Hoek is famous as a retirement community. Early mornings are when the “golden oldies” come out. They call themselves that, so it must not be too derogatory. The beach is also a popular place for fishing, which makes sense given its name. I saw a few people standing on the rocks with poles, and there are apparently always nets near the shore. That might be one of the reasons Fish Hoek is not all that popular with surfers.
Just north of Fish Hoek is St James Beach. It is too rocky to be useful as a beach, but people like to picnic on the small patches of sand. St James is famous for its colored changing rooms, for some reason. I suppose colored is not the right word in South Africa. It is famous for its colorful changing rooms. There is a Metrorail station at the beach, which is convenient, but the train tracks are right up against the sand. That makes the view better from the train, while it dampens the view from the beach. The only reason to go to St James Beach that I noticed were two separate tidal pools, which are great for children or anyone who wants to swim in the water without any risk of getting pulled into the bay. The southern pool is larger, but looks less natural.
Photograph by Ingmar Grewar
Just north of St James is Muizenberg. The beaches are separated by a rocky coast, but a road, train, and pedestrian walkway connect the two. Muizenberg is far larger than St James, is more of a traditional sandy beach, and is far more popular. It is supposed to be one of the premier surfing locations in Cape Town. I never saw any waves worth noticing, but maybe I did not go at the right time. Muizenberg has more multicolor changing rooms that get photographed more often than St James, in addition to lifeguards and shark spotters. As a city beach, there is more civilization just across the street. You might want to bring your own food at some of Cape Town's beaches. Muizenberg has more than enough shops, restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets, flea markets, and hotels. There is even a tiny water park and miniature golf course. Muizenberg is a family beach with easy parking. It is the last place you want to go if you like solitude.
The Atlantic side, the west coast of the Cape Peninsula, is much colder and has more interesting beaches.
North of the City Centre is Bloubergstrand, a long, windy beach that seems perfectly designed for kite surfers. It was too crowded and too close to civilization for my tastes, but everyone who visits Cape Town has to go to Bloubergstrand since it has the best postcard view of Table Mountain. If you have ever seen a picture of Table Mountain, odds are it was taken from Bloubergstrand.
Just west of Lion's Head is Clifton, a small cove community where the rich people like to hang out. The small beach is divided into four beaches, for some reason. There are boulders separating each beach, but they are easy enough to walk around. Some of the gaps are large enough to drive a dune buggy through. Clifton beaches are popular, not only because they are geographically removed from the poor people, but because that cove keeps most of the harshest Atlantic wind away.
Less than a kilometer south of Clifton are Glen Beach and Camps Bay. What looks like one white sandy beach are actually two beaches divided by boulders that are more of a permanent sand castle than border. The Camps Bay neighborhood presses up against both beaches, so privacy and seclusion are never an option. Like most of the popular beaches, there are tidal pools on either side and plenty of places to get food and drinks. What Glen Beach/Camps Bay has over everyone else are the seaside views of the Twelve Apostles.
At the southern foot of the Twelve Apostles range is Llandudno Beach, a tiny patch of white sand next to a tiny residential neighborhood. There are no restaurants anywhere nearby and most of the parking is in front of people's houses. Like most of the Atlantic beaches, the water was ridiculously cold. Yet it was one of the most crowded beaches I went to in Cape Town. I'm not really sure why. There are better beaches, easier beaches to get to, more secluded beaches. For whatever reason, Llandudno is a favorite with the locals.
Just down the M6 from Llandudno, which is mostly a drive in a valley between mountain peaks, is Hout Bay Beach. Hout Bay is one of the larger neighborhoods on the southern peninsula, with a fishing marina about the same size as the beach. The marina brings a lot of birds that you never see at other beaches and a seal or two. Since the beach sits deep inside the bay, which has mountains on either side, it is not nearly as windy as some of the Atlantic beaches. The water is entirely too cold, but at least you can stay warm on the sand.
Chapman's Peak Drive, which is easily the most scenic car route in all of Cape Town, goes from Llandudno to Kommetjie. Long Beach is billed as the longest beach in Cape Town, which makes sense. Except there are longer stretches of uninterrupted sand at Muizenberg and Blouberg. Those beaches have different names at arbitrary spots, even though you have no idea when you cross from one beach to another. I suppose, from a certain point of view, Long Beach is the longest. There is also a Long Beach at Simon's Town, though it is one tenth the size, if that, and kind of an ugly beach. Kommetjie's Long Beach certainly felt like the largest beach in Cape Town. Probably because it was entirely deserted when we went. I never understood why some beaches were more popular than others when the most popular beaches were often my least favorite. I'm sure timing and location had a lot to do with it.
More than for its size, Long Beach became one of my favorite beaches because we rode horses. With the stables at the north end of the beach, we were able to ride the entire length of the beach, past the skeleton of a wrecked ship, over the river, and through the dunes. It is not entirely impossible to ride a horse in Taiwan, but only one of my colleagues and I had ever seen a horse in person. Fortunately, the Long Beach horses were exceptionally calm and unfazed by foreigners and our unusual language. To horses, all humans speak gibberish.
My favorite beach was Sandy Bay, for a few reasons. It had the same white sand and freezing cold water as most of the other Atlantic beaches, but it was more isolated and harder to get to. There was no neighborhood pressed against the beach. That meant no lifeguards, no shark spotters, no restaurants, no arcades, no boardwalk, and no crowds. Llandudno was over a mountain ridge and Hout Bay was a valley away. I can understand why parents like to take their children to busy beaches with ample parking and easy snacks. I prefer as much nature as possible when I go to the beach. The less I see of anything made by man, the better. Sandy Bay also happens to be Cape Town's only nude beach.
Getting my Taiwanese friends to go to the beach was always a chore. They are not beach people. Taiwan is an island in the Pacific Ocean, yet most of its natural beaches are ignored. Kenting is a popular resort town. Most people go for the night markets and food. Whenever I have seen anyone on the beach, they have been fully clothed and hiding under umbrellas. Swimming and feeling the fresh air on your skin are not popular activities in Taiwan.
I went to most of Cape Town's beaches with a handful of Taiwanese. Only two of them ever wore a bathing suit and only one went into the water. The Atlantic side was too cold even for me, but getting them into the warmer False Bay water was difficult. In Taiwan, beaches are to be viewed and photographed. I thought the Cape Town beaches were too inviting to waste.
I took one friend to Sandy Bay. I knew it was a nude beach long before we went and I knew I was going to use it as such. That meant bringing the only Taiwanese who would have even possibly considered going nude. Once there, it was up to her what she was going to do. I was going to enjoy the beach as much as possible, weather permitting. Fortunately, the weather could not have been better. The water could have been warmer, but that was never an option. At least the sky cooperated.
She chose to keep her bathing suit on. There were a few other people at the beach, all bare ass naked. She felt it was unsafe with other people around. The one Chinese woman on the beach was the only person wearing any clothes. She said that if we had been alone, she might have gone nude. I doubt it. She probably would have said it was unsafe without any other people around.
Where I live, people stare at me all the time. I am hardly the only foreigner in Taiwan, but I am most definitely a foreigner. Every once in a while, a child will even point to me and call out, “外國人”. I have never seen a parent tell them not to do that. They are correct, after all. I am a foreigner. In Cape Town, no one stared at me, as far as I know. I was not obviously a foreigner, until I spoke. Even then, foreigners are not such a rare occurrence. There are many white people in Cape Town. Some would say there are too many white people in Cape Town. No one ever stared at my Taiwanese friends, either. The Chinese community in South Africa is much smaller than the white community. Unlike Taiwan, no one is all that impressed by someone who looks different. The exception was on Sandy Bay. My Taiwanese friend got a few glimpses here and there. Not because she was a foreigner, but because she wore clothes. I thought that was interesting. She stood out the most when she was around people who would definitely stand out in any other setting.
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