Cape Point is the high, dramatic headland at the tip of the Cape Peninsula, and one of the most confused names in Cape Town. People often use it interchangeably with the Cape of Good Hope, but they are two distinct points in the same reserve. Cape Point is the clifftop, crowned by an old lighthouse and reached by a funicular, where the land plunges hundreds of metres to the sea on three sides. The Cape of Good Hope is the low, rocky point and famous sign a couple of kilometres to the west. Both sit inside the Cape of Good Hope section of Table Mountain National Park, and the trip is to see both, not to choose.
The point itself is a vertical, theatrical place. From the car park, the Flying Dutchman funicular carries you most of the way up to the old lighthouse, or you can climb the steep paved path on foot in fifteen minutes. From the top the cliffs drop away dramatically and the view runs down the peninsula and out over the ocean, with a lower path leading on to the newer lighthouse built when the old one proved too often lost in cloud. It is windier and more exposed than almost anywhere else on the peninsula, so bring a layer and pick a clear, calm day if you can.
Treat Cape Point as the headline of a full peninsula day rather than a quick stop. Our Cape of Good Hope guide covers the wider reserve, the wildlife and the Chapman’s Peak approach, so this page is about the headland and how it differs from its neighbour. Ride the funicular up and walk down, keep your food and bags away from the notoriously bold baboons, and link the point with the penguins at Boulders Beach, the cliff-hugging drive over Chapman’s Peak and a meal in Simon’s Town or Hout Bay. Seen that way, the meeting of land and ocean at the bottom of Africa earns its full day.
