Who this is really for
Be honest with yourself about this one. Cape Town is not a hunting add-on. It is a different holiday on the end of a hunting trip, and it is the single most common thing our South African clients do with the week after the safari.
It is also, frequently, the trade. A partner who has no interest whatsoever in seven days of plains game will agree to the trip if the back half is Cape Town, and a great many of our bookings exist because of that arrangement.
What is actually there
Table Mountain, with a cable car to the top and a flat summit you can walk about on. Go on the first clear morning rather than saving it — the cloud comes in and stays.
The Cape Peninsula — a day’s drive down to Cape Point and back up the other side. Chapman’s Peak Drive, Boulders Beach with its African penguins, Simon’s Town, and the Cape of Good Hope at the end.
The Winelands — Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and Paarl, half an hour inland. Three hundred and fifty years of wine making, some of the oldest Cape Dutch architecture in the country, and tasting rooms that are genuinely good rather than merely scenic. Franschhoek runs a hop-on tram between estates, which solves the driving problem neatly.
The food. Cape Town is one of the better eating cities anywhere, at prices that startle American and European visitors in a good way.
Whale watching at Hermanus from roughly June to November — southern right whales close enough inshore to watch from a clifftop path.
Robben Island, for anyone who wants the history rather than the scenery.
The timing problem, stated plainly
Cape Town is at its best from November to April. Our South African hunting season runs March to October. Those do not overlap well.
What that means:
- Hunt in March or April and you catch the tail of Cape Town’s best weather.
- Hunt in September or October and you catch the start of it — spring, wildflowers on the West Coast, whales still at Hermanus, and far fewer tourists.
- Hunt in June or July and Cape Town is wet and windy. It is still Cape Town, and the Winelands in winter by a fire with a glass of red is not a hardship, but do not expect beaches.
We would rather tell you that now than have you arrive in a Cape winter expecting the postcard.
How we handle it
This is the one on the list where we are most clearly outside our own ground, and we will say so.
We book the flights from Johannesburg, the accommodation and the transfers through people we trust, and we will tell you honestly which parts of it we know well and which we are passing on from clients who have done it. We are hunters in Limpopo, not Cape Town concierges.
Practical notes
Flights. Two hours from Johannesburg, several a day, and cheap by international standards. Easy to add at the end.
No malaria, no prophylaxis, and a genuinely first-world city.
Firearms. Your rifles do not go to Cape Town. They are dealt with before you leave the hunting area — exported, shipped to the taxidermist, or stored — and we handle that paperwork before you fly south.
Car hire. Worth it. The peninsula and the Winelands are both much better with your own car.
