Feathers and Fins in Cape Town

Some afternoons in a Cape week need to belong to the children, and this one is built for them. It starts after lunch, keeps everyone on their feet but never far from a bench, and ends with the kind of tired that makes supper easy.

World of Birds sits in the valley behind Hout Bay, a warren of aviaries under netting, planted like a garden. You walk into the enclosures rather than past them, so the birds are over your head and along the path: parrots arguing, owls asleep in plain sight, waterbirds picking through the shallows. There are a few mammals and reptiles too. Children find things faster than adults here, which is half the fun of it.

Then the coast road round to the V&A Waterfront, through Camps Bay with the Twelve Apostles above it and the sea below. It is a short drive and a good one to look out of the window for.

The Two Oceans Aquarium is named for the seas on either side of the Cape, and you walk from one to the other. On the cold Atlantic side there is a kelp forest in a tank so tall you tilt your head back to see the top, the fronds swaying in a surge the aquarium makes for them. On the warm Indian Ocean side, reef fish in colours that do not look real. In the predator tank, ragged-tooth sharks drift past a long window with rays and shoaling fish around them.

There are African penguins too, and jellyfish lit against black. Behind the scenes the aquarium runs a rescue programme for young sea turtles that wash up on Cape beaches, nursing them and releasing them back into the ocean; ask about it, because children love the idea that the turtle in front of them is on its way home.

It is a gentle day, and deliberately so. Put it between the long ones: the day after the Peninsula, say, or on an afternoon when the wind has closed the mountain.

Good to know

• Built for families. Tell us who is coming and we will say whether it suits them.
• A sling or carrier is easier than a pushchair on some of the aviary paths.
• Everything here is for watching. Nobody handles the birds or the sea life.
• It runs on set afternoons of the week. We fit it to your dates.
• Bring a layer. The aquarium is cool inside, and Hout Bay can be windy.