The Whale Coast at Hermanus

Hermanus is a small town on Walker Bay, east of Cape Town, with one unusual piece of good fortune: the sea floor drops away steeply right at the shore, so the whales that come into the bay to calve come in properly close. Close enough that you watch them from a paved path along the top of the cliffs, with your hands in your pockets.

Southern rights are the ones that come. Enormous, black, callused white round the head, and entirely unhurried. They roll, lie on their backs with a fin in the air, slap the water with the tail for reasons nobody has fully settled, and occasionally throw the whole animal clear of the surface, which you will hear before you have finished turning your head. Mothers bring calves in close to the rocks.

The cliff path runs the length of the town, open to anyone, with benches and coffee along it. There is a whale crier who walks the front and blows a kelp horn to say where they are, in a code posted on a board, which sounds like a gimmick and is in fact how people find them.

Behind the town the Hemel-en-Aarde valley runs inland between hills, planted with the pinot noir and chardonnay that have made it the serious wine district it now is. It is quieter than Stellenbosch, the estates are smaller, and it is the obvious way to spend the middle of a day when the whales have gone somewhere else for an hour.

There is a scheduled version of the day from Cape Town that does all of it as a loop. Out along the coast road to Hermanus for the morning on the cliff path, with a boat for anyone who wants to get closer, then lunch in town and a tasting at a small estate in the Hemel-en-Aarde. Home is inland, through the apple orchards of the Elgin valley and over Sir Lowry’s Pass, with False Bay opening up below you on the way down.

The road out is the other half. The coast route from the Cape runs along the edge of the mountains with the sea on the rocks below and viewpoints all the way. It is a drive people plan a day round without any whales in it at all. Do this on the way to the Garden Route, or as one long day out of Cape Town after the Winelands.

Good to know

• The season is a window, not a date, and it moves. We will tell you honestly whether your dates fall in it.
• Bring binoculars. The cliff path is close, but the bay is bigger than it looks.
• Wind and cold off the water even on a bright day. A proper jacket, not a cardigan.
• Watch from the path first before deciding you need a boat. Most people find they do not.
• Boat operators are permitted and regulated, and their schedules move with the sea. We confirm yours in writing.
• The coast road is the point as much as the town. Give the driving its own time rather than treating it as transfer.