Itinerary Ideas and current local news - Nov 2023

Ideas for Day Trips

Nov2023

Lalapanzi Lodge is a good base to see the Cape area. We are located between Cape Town and Hermanus on the Schapenbergen Wine route. Approximately 50 minute drive to Cape Town, 50 minute drive from Hermanus, 30 minute drive to the centre of Stellenbosch, 10 minutes to the beach. Below I will write about some self-drive day trips you can do from here, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

For your information, we serve simple meals in the evenings at the lodge, please arrange meals at breakfast, so we can be prepared at night. 

We can recommend the following self-drive tours:

1.     Visiting Cape Town.

It’s easy to drive to Cape Town, as its one highway, the N2. Travelling time is approximately 1 hour from our lodge to the V&A Waterfront. Your car is parked safely at the Waterfront, which is a good place to go to for food and shopping. Or we can arrange a taxi/transfer for you to and from the V&A.

The best way to get around in Cape Town is by using the ‘red open top’ bus (you probably know them from other major cities). It brings you along all the attractions and you can hop off and on wherever you like. The bus tour is good, but so are the canal and harbour tours, they are well worth doing.

For more information: https://www.citysightseeing.co.za/en/cape-town

2.     A trip up to Table Mountain and to Robben Island are well worth it. Unfortunately, both attractions are very weather dependent. If it's too windy the cable car will be closed and it is not advisable to sail out when the sea is rough. Therefore we advice that you are flexible with dates, perhaps try to book this earlier in your planner with a possibility to go later, should the weather not play its part. Book Robbenisland in advance to avoid disaapointment (a few days in advance), the wind normally picks up in the afternoon, morning trips are less likely to be cancelled. We advice you to park your car at the V&A Waterfront, and take a taxi to Tablemountain.

For more information: http://tablemountain.net/ & http://www.robben-island.org.za/

3.     The Cape Peninsula is a great day out.

You drive from Lalapanzi Lodge to Simons Town, which is approximately 1.5 hour. Most visitors stop here to see the penguins at Boulders beach but there is also an amazing penguin spot in Betty's Bay, should you like to carry on. Stopping here and having a stroll around is wonderful. Simons Town is home to South Africans larges navy base and a world famous penguins colony.

The Cape Peninsula reserve is just past Simons Town and is open from 6am till 6pm in summer and 7am till 5pm in winter, we advise you to arrive early as the park only allows a limited number of guests per day. Once you entered you can go to Cape Point (where you can walk or take the Funicular up to the lookout point. https://capepoint.co.za/), this is approximately a 30 minute drive. Or drive to Cape of Good hope for a hike. There is one restaurant at Cape Point (Ocean Basket restaurant that opens at 11am till 4pm), which offers lovely sit down lunches with amazing views.

After Cape Point you can drive back via the west side of the peninsula. This is a beautiful to drive back via the Atlantic side of the peninsula past Scarborough, Misty Cliffs, Kommetjie, Fish hoek back to Lalapanzi Lodge (all towns are lovely and have little restaurants/coffeeshops) - 115 Miles / 185 Kilometers (About 4 hours' drive without stops)

4.     Table mountain National park drive & Chapmanspeak drive.

Drive from us to Kirstenbosch gardens https://www.sanbi.org/gardens/kirstenbosch/ . Kirstenbosch Botanical gardens shows of the indigenous plants from this region called Fynbos. Depending on your interest, you can spend half a day here easily or just a hour. In summer they host various concerts and have open air cinema. You can also give this a miss and drive straight via Constantia Nek to Hout Bay.

Hout Bay, means “wood” bay and used to be the port from which they exported wood. Now it is a small busy town, the entrance to the famous “Chapmans Peak drive” and used for trips to a large seal colony just outside the bay. We can recommened you driving up and down Chapmans Peak drive and can advice you stop regularly to admire the construction and the views from this cliff side road. Houtbay harbour has some art and crafts and boat tours to the seal colony, its only half an hour and not too expensive and would definately recommend you do a trip. Or snorkel with them, this is an amazing experience, should you like to spend some more time here. We enjoy lunch or dinner at https://www.chefswarehouse.co.za/cw-tintswalo (booking essential)

From Houtbay drive “home” via Llandudno and Camps Bay, where you can always stop off for some drinks along the famous Camps Bay boulevard. (About 3 hours' drive without stops)

5.     The Local Winelands.

The Cape Winelands has more than a hundred beautiful vineyards. So, it's hard to pick and it's impossible to know them all, I’ve separated them in little areas.

HELDERBERG AREA WINELANDS

We can recommend a few vineyards close-by (Helderberg area), which you can either drive to yourself or take a taxi.

  • Idiom wine estate – Lovely lunch restaurant with amazing wines and a great view. And you do not have to go on to the public road to get here. https://idiom.co.za/

  • Waterkloof wines – now home of a wonderful fine-dining restaurant. Book at https://bertusbasson.com/ Chorus restaurant. Open for lunch and dinner.

  • Vergelegen wine estate - One of the oldest estates in South Africa, it has a small museum, stunning gardens, two restaurants and an amazing wine tasting tour (11am). http://www.vergelegen.co.za/

  • Morgenster - This estate is next to Vergelegen Wine estate (you can walk from one to the other) and is famous for its olive oil. It has a lovely restuarant and wine and olive tastings. https://morgensterestate.co.za/visit-us/

  • Lourensford wine estate – This estate is not only producing wines but is also a hub in the community, with food market evenings on Friday, Saturday daytime and Sunday daytime, a shooting range, PuttPutt, yoga studio, MTB tracks, a coffee roastery and art gallery. It’s a favourite place to meet up for locals in the weekend and it has various events on during the summer season. https://lourensford.co.za/

FRANSCHHOEK VALLEY WINELANDS

A great day trip is to drive from Lalapanzi Lodge via Grabouw, through the Elgin region, over the Franschhoek Pass to Franschhoek.

You go over 2 passes, which both have stunning views. The Elgin region is known for their apple orchards, pine plantations and also wine. It’s a beautiful drive. In Franschhoek you can have a coffee, browse through shops, visit the Hugenoten museum, go to the car museum (just outside town) or take the wine tram – it’s a very quaint little town with many tourists. Lunch can be enjoyed at one of the vineyards between Franschhoek and Stellenbosch. I can recommend La Motte, Le Grand Provence, Bosch en Dal and Tokara. But all vineyards serve delicious meals and drinks, so no matter which one you choose, it’s bound to be great. You can drive back via Stellenbosch.

Stellenbosch has a large university and is surrounded by winelands. It’s therefore a town that is mixed with students, tourists and farmers. The town’s oak-shaded streets are lined with cafes, boutiques and art galleries. As this is one of the oldest towns in South Africa, where you will find lots of Cape Dutch architecture.

SIMONS BERGEN WINELANDS

Another Winelands trip is a trip around the Simons Bergen area. You go to Stellenbosch and have a stroll around the old town and have a coffee at the botanical gardens. From there you drive up Hell’s Hoogte and go towards Paarl and if you like you can go and visit Paarl. Paarl is an old town and has a nice quaint centre and some stunning vineyards around them. (Fairview, who specializes in own produces cheese and wine, for example). You can also just turn left before Paarl and visit even more vineyards; Babylonstoren is stunning with hectares of food garden to explore or visit the croc farm (with crocodiles) to sample a crocodile pie. At butterfly world (museum who specializes in local creep and crawlies – kids love it) you turn back to Stellenbosch. Again, you have numerous vineyards to choose from; Warwick (does lovely picnics), Uitkyk and Morgenhof to name a few.

As you can never get enough of food and wine, you can also go on a wine tour through Elgin region, Hemel en Aarde valley, Durbanville or Constantia. Should you like more information per region, kindly let me know – or let me know what wine you like and I can perhaps point you in a direction.

We can recommend the following specialized wine and tourist tours:

6.     Whale Watching and Penguins

Something totally different is the day trip to Hermanus via Clarence Drive. From Lalapanzi Lodge you go to Gordon's bay. The road from Gordon’s Bay takes you right along the ocean to Kogel Bay and Rooi-Els. From Rooi-Els you go a bit inland and will hit the ocean again at Betty's Bay.

Betty's Bay has a large penguin colony (at Stoney Point), beautiful botanical gardens and a beautiful beach. From Betty's Bay it’s a short drive to Kleinmond which has some good fish restaurants. From Kleinmond the road goes a bit inland around a lagoon and will then go to Hermanus.

Hermanus has a nice attractive centre and is busy between June and November because of the whales (Whale season). There is a nice walk along the cliffs where you can get a good look at the whales from land. A few years ago, we took a boat tour to see the whales, this is spectacular. All operators charge the same, but have different boats. See the options below, they also do marine life tours out of season which are very enjoyable and educational:

7.     Golf.

If you like to play Golf or if you want to try it, the Cape has some beautiful golf courses. There are 2 world class golf courses close-by; Arabella end Pearl valley. The other beautiful golf courses are Stellenbosch, The Zalze, Erinvale, Somerset West and Strand. Please let us know in advance if you like to play golf, we will be happy to arrange this for you and tell you more about the courses. Strand Golf Club also has a lovely putt putt course and around the corner there is a driving range, should you wish to improve your skills.

8.     Lalapanzi Lodge

With all the attractions and activities all around us, did we mention cable waterskiing, horse riding, ziplining, segdewaying to you already? We almost forgot to tell you, what you can do just a short walk from your room aswell.

Lalapanzi Lodge is part of a large security estate. You can walk for hours on the Estate and come across wonderful bird life. One part of the estate is a small game reserve which you can walk through, it has mainly “bok” and stunning mountain and sea views. The large farm dam is refreshing to swim in and if you rather stay dry, we have a kayak you can use. Our swimming pool is a short walk from the guesthouse. The guesthouse serves coffees and tea throughout the day and has a massage room where our therapist gives treatments on requests.

I hope the above information has inspired you. Should you be interested in other things, please let us know. We might be able to point you in the right directions.

Any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

We look forward to being part of your holiday! Kind regards, Team Lalapanzi Lodge

Local News:

ELECTRICITY

South Africa has power outages often, this happens because the capacity of our national electricity provider can’t cope with the demand of the country. When this is the case, the national electricity company starts implementing so called “Loadshedding”. Loadshedding is a schedule made by the electricity company, Eskom, which tells you when they will not be suppling electricity. We therefore know when we have power and when we have no power. We even have an App that keeps us updated about the power outages, ESP loadshedding, which you can download free on your phone. We are area Sir Lowry’s Pass (5) Eskom Direct.

Our guesthouse, lodges and villa have a “solar” back up system during loadshedding. Lights, ceiling fan, fridges, WiFi keeps on working 24/7.

During 8am and 8pm, we have a generator that provides us with power for our higher consumption equipment like geysers, irons, washing machines, etc. Kindly note that we operate our generator manually and try to use our solar power before we use the generator. While we are on the generator everything works in your room, please be mindful of your electricity usage, as it can trip/break when it’s loaded too much. Thank you.

STORM DAMAGE

We have had some bad storm in September/October 2023. Because of the storms, the road between KogelBay and Rooiels is closed and many other roads are still being repaired. Especially on mountain passes or cliff roads.