Travel to Hangklip Peninsular

penguins and botanical gardens

The Hangklip Peninsula is located in the Whale Coast area of the Western Cape.

Driving east from Cape Town across the Cape Flats, the mountainous promontory of the Hangklip stands out over the ocean, framing the far side of the broad False Bay.

This dramatic landscape of rare fynbos vegetation and remote beaches is where our strandlopers ancestors lived many thousands of years ago. In more recent centuries it has been home to pirates and remained pretty wild until quite recently.

These days however Hangkip is ringed by a main sealed road and its beaches and bays have become increasingly overrun by rashes of obviously owner-designed holiday and retirement homes.

The drive around Hangklip used to be considered the scenic way to reach Hermanus and, whilst it does remain the more interesting route, our advice is not to get too excited about the prospect.

Highlights include the penguin colony and the important Harold Porter Botanical Gardens, both at Betty’s Bay.

We do not have any recommended accommodation in this area, our guests tend to push on to either the busy whale-watching town of Hermanus or a little further east to the more rural Gansbaai area.