South Africa in a rental car: Cape Town, the Garden Route, and the Winelands I stayed too long in
Mika Soren
My first morning in Cape Town I walked down to the waterfront at 7am, looked up at Table Mountain with the cloud coming over the top of it, and said something out loud to nobody in particular.
This is the embarrassing thing Cape Town does to people.
You arrive knowing it’s beautiful and it’s still more than that.
Three weeks. Rental car. The best possible way to do South Africa.
Cape Town: the city with the mountain problem
The mountain problem is this: Table Mountain is visible from almost everywhere in Cape Town and it changes how the city looks constantly. Morning cloud, afternoon clear, sunset light on the rock face. You find yourself checking on it the way you check weather. It’s distracting in the best sense.
Table Mountain. Go up by cable car (book ahead, the queues on clear days are significant, clear days sell out). The flat-topped summit: a landscape that doesn’t look like a mountain top, more like an elevated plateau with endemic fynbos (the unique Cape floral kingdom) and rock hyraxes (small mammals that are surprisingly relaxed around people). The views from the top in every direction over the city and the peninsula and the two oceans.
The Cape Peninsula. Rent a car and do the full peninsula drive: through Hout Bay, along Chapman’s Peak (one of the great coastal drives), to Cape Point (the meeting of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean currents, not technically the southernmost point of Africa but the most dramatic). The African penguins at Boulders Beach on the Indian Ocean side: a colony of them on a beach that you share with them, which is completely surreal and excellent.
Bo-Kaap. The Cape Malay quarter on the slopes of Signal Hill: brightly coloured terraced houses, the mosque on the corner, the community that has lived here for centuries. The Noon Gun fires daily at 12pm from the hill above. The food: Cape Malay cooking is a cuisine of its own (bobotie, koeksisters, the spice-influenced curry tradition from the enslaved Cape Malay community).
The food market culture. Cape Town has an extraordinary food market scene. The Oranjezicht City Farm Market (Granger Bay on Saturdays, the V&A Waterfront on Sundays): small producers, artisan bread, charcuterie, cheese, local wines, prepared food stalls. The Neighbourgoods Market at the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock on Saturday mornings: the trendy version, excellent for grazing.
What I ate: Braai (the South African barbecue, culturally significant, the correct way to eat meat in South Africa, done properly at a grill outside with boerewors sausage and lamb chops and pap and chakalaka). Breyani (a Cape Malay layered spiced rice dish) at a restaurant in Bo-Kaap. The peri-peri chicken at a local Nando’s (the original, not the franchise you get abroad, the sauce is different here and the chicken is from here). Waterblommetjie bredie (Cape water-lily stew) in winter.
The Winelands: Stellenbosch, Franschhoek
45 minutes from Cape Town, the Stellenbosch wine region: mountains, oak-lined streets, Dutch colonial architecture, and a wine industry that produces world-class Pinotage and Chenin Blanc at prices that feel like apologies for being so good.
Stellenbosch town. The most beautiful small town in South Africa: oak trees over every street (Eikestad means “oak city” in Afrikaans), white-gabled Cape Dutch architecture, the university giving it energy, the restaurant and wine bar street (Dorp Street) for evenings.
The wine route. The Stellenbosch wine route covers over 150 estates. Rent a bike for the flat valley roads between farms. The small family farms offer tastings in their barrel rooms for R50-100: pour yourself through their current releases with a view of vineyards and mountains. Meerlust, Rust en Vrede, Kanonkop for the red wines. Kleine Zalze for a range. Tokara for the views from the hilltop estate.
Franschhoek. The Huguenot valley, 30 minutes from Stellenbosch, a single main street lined with restaurants that make this valley the culinary capital of South Africa: La Petite Colombe, The Tasting Room at Le Quartier Français, Bread & Wine at Moreson. The Franschhoek Motor Museum (better than it sounds: extraordinary private collection including vintage race cars and early South African vehicles).
The Garden Route: drive it properly
East from Cape Town along the coast, the Garden Route runs about 300km to Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha). I did four days and wished for six.
Wilderness and the Wilderness Lagoon. A small town around a lagoon where the river meets the sea: kayaking through the bird-rich lagoon (African fish eagles, kingfishers, flamingos in the right season), a beach that extends in both directions without development, a genuinely good coffee shop.
Knysna. The lagoon town with the Heads (two rocky cliffs marking the narrow ocean entrance). The oysters at the waterfront: local, fresh, eaten with mignonette sauce looking out at the lagoon. The Featherbed Nature Reserve accessible only by boat. The old town’s covered market on weekends.
Tsitsikamma National Park. Forest and gorge at the eastern end of the Garden Route: the Storms River Mouth, the suspension bridge across the gorge (a short walk from the rest camp), the bungee jump from the Bloukrans Bridge (the world’s highest commercial bungee jump at 216m, optional, I did it).
It was briefly the most frightened I’ve been in my life and immediately the story I tell most.
Practical things
Drive on the left. South Africa uses left-hand traffic, same as Australia, UK, and East African countries. The roads are generally good between cities; less so in some rural areas.
Safety by area. South Africa has genuine crime concerns. The standard approach: don’t stop at red lights in unfamiliar areas at night (in Cape Town specifically, rolling through red lights in quiet areas late at night is accepted practice), use covered parking, keep valuables hidden in the car or take them with you, trust your instincts about situations.
The currency. South African Rand. Very favourable exchange rate for most international visitors. This makes the wine and the restaurant meals notably affordable.
Electricity. South Africa has had load-shedding (scheduled power cuts to manage national grid load). These are scheduled and tracked via apps (EskomSePush is the one everyone uses). Your accommodation will have a schedule and usually a generator. Annoyance level depends entirely on timing.
Wildlife beyond the parks. Baboons on the Cape Peninsula are real, bold, and will absolutely enter your car if you leave windows open near them. Do not feed them. Close windows at the beaches and viewpoints along the Chapman’s Peak route.
Coverage in Cape Town and the main Garden Route towns is good. Remote parts of Tsitsikamma and off-road areas can have gaps. I’ve put together a current guide to eSIMs for South Africa with the major network comparison.
South Africa in a rental car is the way.
The mountain in the morning, the wine in the afternoon, the braai in the evening.
It’ll work out.
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