Cape Town whale watching

Cape Town and the Western Cape offer excellent opportunities for whale watching and several different types of whale can be viewed. False Bay and Walker Bay to the east of the Cape Peninsula offer some of  the best whale watching tours and views where southern right whales and to a lesser extent humpbacks and bryde’s are the most common. If you’re really lucky you might even get to see the killer whale.

The Whale Coast is around 100 miles to the east of Cape Town and as the waters warm up around July, the southern right (so called as it was the ‘right’ whale to shoot) appears very close to the shoreline here. In some of the more sheltered bays around the Walker Coast just to the west, females come in to give birth and nurse their young.

On the Western Cape there are some great vantage points and stunning sea views for whale watching. Find a good vantage point along the coast with a pair of binoculars and you won’t even need to take a boat tour.

The town of Hermanus, around 70 miles east of Cape Town has awarded itself the title of Whale Spotting Capital of South Africa. Many tours are arranged here but in peak periods things can get very crowded as tourists flock in. Hermanus also claims to be the best land based destination for whale watchers in the world and there are some superb viewing posts in the surrounding mountains. Every year Hermanus throws a whale festival where the whales are joined by celebrities, musicians and thousands of visitors for an annual extravaganza.

It’s not just whales that can be seen in the waters of the Western Cape. On the Atlantic west side, dusky dolphins can be spotted while bluenose dolphins appear in the warmer waters of the east side.

All in all, you don’t have to spend a lot of money or invest a lot of time to view whales in and around Cape Town. From July onwards whales are in abundance and now South Africa has swopped the harpoon for the camera when shooting them, everyone can enjoy the wonder of these giants of the sea.