Full-Day Cape Town Highlights Tour

Boardwalk at Cape Point Nature Reserve

Granite-Migmatite

Granite Corestones

Graafwater Formation - Table Mountain Group

Fossilized Mollusc Shells in Limestone - Cape Point Nature Reserve

Highlights

Cape Town, Simon's Town

nature, sightseeing, walking

Group Tour

1 Day

Easy

Afrikaans, English

Description

Enjoy a full-day guided tour exploring the rich geological history and story of the Mother City and the Cape Peninsula. See the rich and fascinating rock formations and geological processes, that produced the region's Granite and the spectacular sedimentary rocks of the Table Mountain and the surrounding mountain peaks.

Itinerary

Cape Town Tour
- 08h00 - Meet at and depart from the historic Simons Town, traveling south along with the M4.
- Visit the beach at Froggy Pond with its excellently exposed granite.
- From there, travel on to a road cut showing heavily weathered soils produced from the granite during a period of the Cape's history when the climate was much warmer and wetter.
- Head on to a high lookout point on the cliffs, overlooking a beach and section of the Peninsula where a fault has caused a substantial drop in the landscape!
- Go to the Cape Point Nature Reserve and a walk down to Diaz Beach.
- On the way to Diaz Beach, visit an ancient deposit of limestone dating from the Miocene and Pliocene Epochs.
- Afterwards, go to the beach to view fabulous exposures of the Graafwater formation of the Table Mountain Group.
- 12h30 - Eat lunch at the Two Oceans Restaurant, or as organized.
- 13h30 - After Cape Point visit, set out on a lovely scenic drive along the Atlantic coastline through the towns of Scarborough, Misty Cliffs, Kommetjie, and Noordhoek. Along the way, have a few stops to explore specific sights of importance.
- Past Noordhoek, drive along the famous Chapman's peak drive and have excellent sights of the unconformity between the igneous Cape Granites and the Sedimentary Graafwater formation of the Cape supergroup.
- The tour ends at the Seapoint Promenade, visit the famous geological contact point between the Cape Granite and Malmesbury Groups that had Darwin fascinated.
- 17h00 - Return to Simons Town.