Meet the boulders beach penguins
As part of a tour around the Western Cape one of the main parts of this trip and one we were looking forward to the most was a visit to Boulders Beach Cape Town which has one of South Africa and Africa’s largest penguin colonies.
The breed of penguin is the rare African penguin in fact its the only place in the world you can get close to African Penguins
A bit of history
It was back in 1982 that a few of these penguins settled here on Boulders Beach. The area was perfect with large Boulders made of granite that protect the beach from wind and wild waves.
The population of the penguin is sadly dwindling to between 2000 and 3000 and is classified as protected.
On a good note Boulders Beach and some of the surrounding areas are part of the marine protected area in the Table Mountain National Park. This meaning the beaches are protected and both safe and clean.
Our trip
We arrived in False Bay the location of Boulders Beach out on the Cape drive from Cape Town.
Around this little town there are local shops, restaurants and cafes for you to explore. However we headed straight for the boardwalk. (A fee is payable on entrance to the boardwalk 65 SA Rand).
The boardwalk took us out onto a elevated boardwalk above where the penguins are running around playing, swimming and waddling about. It’s a beautiful site to see. The view out to sea is breathtaking and to catch a glimpse of them playing in the waves is just a bucket list item.
The boardwalks meander through the dunes and don’t interfere with the penguins in fact they provide great shelter for those penguins nesting with there chicks.
Take a guide
Our guide Chris who was with us through our Cape Point tour was so knowledgeable on the penguins and although its a easy trip to take yourself I would well recommend a guide as the history and the habits of penguins was so interesting to learn. We used City Sightseeing as our guide for this tour they are experts in the field and have regular tours to Boulders Beach and also well known over South Africa.
We love penguins
This wasn’t our first trip to see rare penguins on a trip to New Zealand we took a drive out Curiio Bay on the most southerly point of the South Island of New Zealand.
It was here we got to see the yellow eyed penguins waddling in for the night from the shore.
To see more on this check out our trip to Curio Bay.
More South Africa
We had 4 parts on our stay in South Africa. See some posts below and see what we got up to.
11 replies on “Boulders Beach Penguins, Cape Town”
Ooh, so cute!
How adorable, hopefully I’ll get my wish to visit Cape Town one of these days.
You must such a wonderful destination with so much to see
Cuties!
I enjoyed reading this, especially as my brother did this just like week and gave a glowing report. Hope you guys are well.
It’s a fantastic spot Leighton could of wandered there for hours. We are great extremely busy but that’s great
The penguins look so sweet! Thank you for sharing this!
This is going straight in my must visit list! I didn’t know of this penguin species and the pictures are too sweet!
South Africa is such an amazing country. Can’t believe that the penguins are so close to a major city. Few animals can beat a penguin when it comes to cuteness. Your post proves that point. 🙂
It was one of our favourites and this was one of our favourite visits. Could of watched them all day
Aww! What cute little guys (and gals) ❤ I love penguins but I usually see them in the snow so this is interesting. 😉