Who doesn’t love watching pengweenis waddle around, cool off with a dip in the sea, and occasionally bray like donkeys? In terms of African penguin colonies in the world, there aren’t exactly many of them, but as luck would have it, the Western Cape is home to two, the first being the world famous Boulders Beach in Simon’s Town, and the second, an equally as enjoyable site, being Stony Point in Betty’s Bay.
The girls and I tend to visit the penguins at Stony Point at least once a year, primarily because I really do love the exquisitely scenic drive along Clarence Drive to get there. On this particular visit we first paid a visit to the white sands of the Betty’s Bay main beach, before wandering over to the penguin rich boardwalk of Stony Point, and then finally off for a leisurely trundle along the nearby coastal pathway.
Stony Point has a great set up of this well maintained wooden boardwalk that allows you to walk right through the penguin colony (by this point the penguins are quite used to the hordes of silly humans who keep stopping to take photos of them and the dassies), and come breeding season you can actually look right into the nests, see the eggs, and watch the young ones slowly make their appearance.
When you do eventually get bored of the frolicking dassies, blue lizards, cormorant colony, and sea-diving penguins of the little nature reserve itself, then there is the small restaurant (On the Edge) and edu-centre near the reserve entrance, and of course the spectacular Kogelberg views that comes bundled with a visit to Betty’s Bay.
So definitely yet another scenic feather in the Western Cape’s cap.
(Penguin spotting and nature walk done, we then went to seek out soft serve ice creams from the nearby Smile & Wave Courtyard Cafe… just as Eskom loadshedding struck. Sigh.)
Related Link: Stony Point Nature Reserve | Betty’s Bay