Western Cape incentive highlights

• Email
• Tweet
• Print

Sailing off the Western Cape coastline

© South African Tourism

The Western Cape is hard to beat as an incentive destination with much to see and do. Here are some Western Cape incentive highlights.

Cape Town’s Table Mountain is the dramatic backdrop to one of the world’s top destinations. A sunset dinner on the top of Table Mountain is hard to beat with its panoramic 360° views of the city and the Cape Peninsula – one of the most beautiful in the world.

Table Mountain provides numerous hiking and walking trails and for the more adventurous, rock climbing and paragliding. The mountain is also accessible by cableway. Along the way you can enjoy magnificent scenery. The wide variety of plant species you'll find in the Table Mountain National Park makes it part of the Western Cape’s Floral Kingdom, one of South Africa’s eight World Heritage Sites.

The Western Cape mountains also offer exhilarating adventure experiences – from microlighting and abseiling to canyoning, mountain biking, river rafting, paragliding and more.

While the verdant valleys of the Cape winelands can be explored on a day trip from Cape Town, the opportunity to spend a few days in this breathtaking location should not be missed. This is an area of majestic mountains, spectacular passes, the historic towns of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, gracious Cape Dutch architecture, wine estates and manor houses dating back to the 17th Century. There are also  numerous award-winning boutique hotels. 

The Western Cape has 13 wines routes with more than 2 000 varieties of wine to taste.  Wine tasting can be combined with superb meals in the many outstanding restaurants you'll find on these fine estates. And if you're in the mood, you can enjoy a horse-drawn carriage ride through the vineyards, go cycling, tread grapes and even blend your own wine. 

The sensational Whale Coast stretches from the hamlet of Rooiels in the west to Quoin Point in the east and is flanked by ocean and mountain views. A major highlight is the sighting of the southern right whales that occurs between June and November. If you’re visiting at the end of September, don’t miss the Whale Festival that takes place in Hermanus. Here you can also book yourself on a shark cage diving expedition at Gansbaai.

Some 12 kilometres from Cape Town harbour, Robben Island is the notorious prison where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 18 (of his 27) years in jail. You can visit the prison, tour the island and pay homage to the great struggle heroes of the past. Cape Town's District Six Museum which highlights forced removals under the apartheid regime is another great place to explore, as is the Bo-Kaap Museum – a tribute to Cape Malay culture.

In Plettenberg Bay, you can enjoy ecological adventures with miles of sparkling beaches set next to green polo fields. Here you can encounter bottlenose and rare Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, as well as some shark species. Also along the Garden Route you find Mossel Bay, Sedgefield, George, Wilderness and Knysna. It’s a veritable Eden, edge to edge with beaches, lakes, lagoons and forests, mixed with magnificent golf estates and cultural attractions. These are sprinkled liberally with thrills like bungee jumping, deep-sea fishing and sea kayaking.

You’ll find the Outeniqua Hiking Trail, the Otter Trail and the Dolphin Trail in the lush Garden Route National Park. A paradise for eco-lovers, bird watchers and solitude seekers, it’s an ideal setting for adventure incentive travel, and one of the most beautiful parts of the Western Cape.

In Knysna you can walk with elephants, gorge on local oysters washed down with the local beer, stay on a houseboat in the Knysna National Lake area, jump off the world’s highest commercial bungee jump, go fly fishing, and snorkelling, take a treetop canopy tour, or go on a whale, seal and dolphin watching cruise.

The Cango Caves outside Oudtshoorn are adorned with stalactites and stalagmites, while the ostrich palaces located on nearby farms have retained their elegance.

On the West Coast, walk the pathways of the early Khoisan, who left their signatures in hundreds of rock paintings, particularly in the rugged Cederberg mountain range. At the West Coast Fossil Park (a 90 minute drive from Cape Town) there’s a rich find of animal fossils. About mid-year, depending on the rains, the region breaks into a field of daisies, proteas and shrubs as the flower season starts. Also remember, the West Coast is renowned for exquisite seafood including prawns, crayfish and calamari.

And further inland under the infinite skies of the Klein Karoo and Central Karoo there’s much archaeology, wildlife, architecture and some of the most impressive mountain passes.