Southern right whales

© James BoyceThe southern right whales start arriving in June in the waters off the Cape coast from the West Coast to the Garden Route. Here they mate, calve and generally hang out, occasionally flopping a tail up, or sticking their heads out of the water to check out the humans. They are so easy to watch.

In Cape Town, you can choose between an escorted boat-based excursion or just wander around the peninsula, where you’ll get good views of them from the road, or even the train, anywhere along the False Bay coast. And they're distinctly visible on the western seaboard.

The town of Hermanus, about an hour's drive from Cape Town, has proclaimed itself the whale capital of the world – and it's not far off. These huge beasts sometimes loll around mere metres from the shore, and they are clearly visible from the scenic and fragrant cliff-top walk. The nearby town of Gansbaai, on the eastern side of Walker Bay, offers equally good cliff-top viewing but with a bit less hype. Both Hermanus and Gansbaai also offer boat-based whale watching.

Two fantastic, lesser known spots to see these huge beasts from the shore are the De Hoop Nature Reserve, about two hour’s drive from Cape Town and – a little further east – San Sebastian Bay at the mouth of the Breede River.

On the Garden Route, the town of Plettenberg Bay, which is better known as a boat-based destination, also has some good land-based whale watching, particularly from Robberg Nature Reserve.

Mating starts in early June and continues throughout the whales’ sojourn in South African waters. The cows usually drop their calves in late August or early September. The whales usually stay until November or December, when they return to their Antarctic feeding grounds. A few stragglers may hang around until early in the new year and it seems that some sneaky individuals have worked out that they don’t have to go back to Antarctica if they hang out in the cold, nutrient-rich waters of the West Coast, just north of Cape Town.

We don't have any whale watching tours listed as yet, but contact us and we'll put you in touch with the right people.