Location: Cape Town train Station to Boulders Beach
Thank you to: Hunter for the idea, Lauren for her birthday, Jabu for the jamming taxi trip.
One of the greatest things about the Cape is it is fairly safe to travel on public transport; fairly safe and also very scenic. From Cape Town CBD to ‘the end of the line’ in Simon’s Town on the Cape Peninsula, is, we would have to say, a trip you need to do at least once…
False Bay must be the most popular beach in the Western Cape…
There were a few ideas floating around for how to celebrate Lauren’s birthday – and in the end, she decided to do something she had never done and always wanted to do…something most local Capetonians avoid because of the reputation the Metro Rail has seemed to achieve over the last few years.
Recently PRASA (Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa) took over the contract for Metro Rail nationally and has been investing a few million into the infrastructure. We can say they have come a long way, but still a long way to go…
So we were tourists for the day…starting off with the MyCiti bus from our little dollop of Table View to the CBD. Then catching the train from there a few minutes later…a very busy time to be at the station as all the commuters were coming into work; we were going the opposite direction to the outskirts…
It takes around 45min – 1hr for the entire trip with around 27 stops on the Southern Suburbs Line. On this particular occasion and for months to follow – we disembarked in Fish Hoek to catch a bus the rest of the route as sand had blown in and covered the tracks from Fish Hoek to Simonstown, around 4 stops away. Once you come around the False Bay station, the train runs along the beach which is incredibly beautiful to witness…families potting around the beaches and little towns along the way – we truly did feel like tourists…something about public transport that puts you in that zone.
So a short and winding bus trip to Simon’s Town where we needed to find a taxi to take us the few kilometres to Boulder’s Beach itself. There are various sections to this area, the most popular being the attraction of penguins in the reserve.
We didn’t go into the reserve, instead, we made our way down to the beach and onto the boulders to bathe in the sun and swim in the cool Indian Ocean.
This was a magical trip and we would encourage anyone to be a tourist in their own town and/or when you find yourself in Cape Town…make the train trip out to the False Bay coast and enjoy the gorgeous coastline and dots of small villages along the bay.
