Camps Bay Camps Bay is a favourite with locals and visitors on their South African holidays. Kloof Road winds down into the Glen and passes the Round House (once the hunting lodge of British Governor Lord Charles Somerset) before reaching the fashionable suburb of Camps Bay, with its palm-lined beach, tidal pool and lively atmosphere. The Twelve Apostles and Table Mountain’s ravines and buttresses form an impressive backdrop.
Siyabona Africa Travel recommends Cape Town coastal accommodation Hout Bay...with its picturesque harbour setting guarded by The Sentinel, is a charming seaside village. Centred around the hull of a 1940s trawler at the harbour front, Mariner’s Wharf has a fish market, seafood bistro, restaurant, wine shop and several curio shops. At the World of Birds, the largest bird park in Africa, visitors can get close-up views of over 3 000 birds of 450 indigenous and exotic species, as well as a variety of small mammals.
Set on 4 ha of land in the Hout Bay valley, the park has over 100 landscaped walk-through aviaries. Popular excursions from Hout Bay include a launch cruise to Duiker Island, home to a Cape fur seal colony, and a sunset cruise to Cape Town.
Siyabona Africa Travel recommends accommodation in Hout Bay Kirstenbosch Botanical GardensCovering 528 ha of natural and landscaped gardens, Kirstenbosch ranks among the world’s most famous botanical gardens and has over 4 500 plant species. The cultivated garden covers 36 ha, and among its attractions are the Fragrance Garden, Cycad Amphitheatre, the Dell – with its massive tree ferns – Colonel Bird’s Bath and the Fynbos Walk. The Conservatory houses a fascinating collection of plants from seven of southern Africa’s arid regions in natural settings around an enormous baobab tree, which forms the focal point of the Conservatory.
There are also collections of ferns, alpine flora and bulbs. The Summer Sunset Concerts held in the late afternoon on Sundays between December and March are an extremely popular annual event on weekends and South African holidays. Rhodes MemorialThis imposing memorial to Cecil John Rhodes (mining magnate and former prime minister of the Cape Colony), was designed by Sir Herbert Baker and is based on the Greek temple at Segesta, Sicily. The equestrian sculpture by GF Watts portrays ‘Physical Energy’; behind it, eight bronze lions guard the steps leading up to the colonnaded temple, with its bust of Rhodes. University of Cape TownBuilt on the lower slopes of Devil’s Peak, the University of Cape Town has its origins in the South African College, which was founded in 1829. After the college was granted university status in 1928, it was decided to relocate from the top end of the Company’s Garden to the present site on Rhodes’ Estate. Dominating the university grounds is Jameson Hall, with its classical portico, while the original dressed-sandstone buildings are spread out below. Mostert’s Mill...a distinctive landmark on the route to and from Cape Town’s southern suburbs, was one of several private mills built in the 18th century for grinding wheat. In Holland, such mills were known as bovenkruiper, or ‘overshot’ mills. The date 1796 on one of the beams suggests that the windmill was probably built by Dirk Gysbert van Reenen, who owned the farm Welgelegen at the time. The mill later came into Sybrand Mostert’s possession, a son-in-law of Van Reenen, and became known as Mostert’s Mill. Groote Schuur HospitalThis large, well-known hospital was officially opened in 1938, six years after the foundation stone was laid. Groote Schuur Hospital became world famous on 3 December 1967, when a medical team led by Dr Chris Barnard performed the world’s first heart transplant on a critically ill patient, Louis Waskansky. The story of this medical breakthrough, and subsequent heart transplants, is told in the hospital’s Transplant Museum. Groote Schuur serves as the medical school of the nearby University of Cape Town. By Willie and Sandra Olivier. | 
