Things to Do with Kids in the Cape Town City Bowl

Open-top bus

... things to Do with Kids in the Cape Town City Bowl
We start our fun out­ings in the Cape Town City Bowl where there are a num­ber of activ­it­ies to delight chil­dren of all ages. A fun activ­ity is to catch the double decker open-top bus (#1) for a 2 hour guided trip around the Mother City. The tour includes the Waterfront and city centre, stops at Table Mountain and con­cludes with a coastal drive back through Camps Bay. It's a hop-on hop-off type tour so you can jump off any­time (plan ahead and park your car some­where close by) or make like tour­ists and take the full two hour tour! It’s a great way to see our beau­ti­ful city.

An altern­at­ive is to “hop-off” at Table Mountain and take your kids up to the top of Table Mountain in the Cable Car (#2). Whilst kids may not appre­ci­ate the views quite as much as adults do, the floor of the cable-car rotates 360 degrees on the ascent and des­cent (which takes 5–10 minutes) and the exper­i­ence of the ride is sure to impress. Continued

Things to Do with Kids on the Atlantic Seaboard

The Blue Train

... things to Do with Kids on the Atlantic Seaboard
Moving on to the Atlantic Seaboard, head to Mouille Point for a day of fun for the little ones and the 'big kids' too. Riding the Blue Train (#12) is a fun activ­ity for chil­dren from one year old and up. Have a little trip on Cape Town's only mini­ature train with a view of the sea, passing ships and Robben Island.

You can also spend qual­ity time in the safe park, play­ing on a jungle gym and other play items. The train oper­ates every day from 9am until sun­set, weather per­mit­ting. Afterwards head over to the Putt Putt Course (#13) for a round of mini­ature golf. You can choose between play­ing two dif­fer­ent courses. Each course con­sists of 18 holes of vary­ing dif­fi­culty. Each round of 18 holes takes about 30 — 45 minutes to com­plete depend­ing on the amount of time you spend on each hole. Continued

Things to Do with Kids in False Bay

Penguins at Boulders

... things to Do with Kids on the False Bay Coast
On the other side of the Cape Peninsula, the False Bay coast offers some favour­ite activ­it­ies of Cape Town's kids. All the moms we asked recom­men­ded spend­ing time at Boulers Beach in Simons Town. We've pub­lished lots of art­icles about the Boulders Beach Penguins (#36) so check out "To Boldly Go ... why swim­ming with Penguins at Boulders is so great" for a first hand report if you haven't tried this yet!

Take a dip in the warmer waters of the Indian Ocean and find your­self swim­ming with the Penguins — its great for kids of all ages, you will enjoy it too! At the Simons Town Scratch Patch (#37), star­ted in 1970, you and the kids can have lots of fun “scratch­ing” for your favour­ite tumble-polished gem­stones from thou­sands of pol­ished stones that cover the floor. Continued

Things to Do with Kids in the Southern Suburbs

Climbing wall

... things to Do with Kids in the Southern Suburbs
Heading ind­land to the Southern Suburbs, an ever pop­u­lar favour­ite with Capetonian moms is Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens (#48), in the Newlands / Claremont area. All the moms we asked for help with this "list" had Kirstenbosch in their top 10 and agreed that it's a won­der­ful place for kids. There are plenty of spots ideal for fam­ily pic­nics and lots of explor­ing for little ones to do.

CityRock (#49) is Cape Town's centre for all things related to Rock Climbing. Their facil­ity fea­ture a large top rope and lead climb­ing area with Introductory les­sons taught numer­ous times every week. Continued

Things to Do with Kids in Blaauwberg

Blouberg beaches

... things to Do with Kids in Blaauwberg
Continue the school hol­i­days with a day in Blaauwberg and enjoy a very spe­cial exper­i­ence — get a group of 8 (kids and par­ents) and take them for a "behind the scenes" tour at SANCCOB (#67). It's highly edu­ca­tional, inter­est­ing and very mov­ing to see the work that is done here. It costs R45.00 per per­son (kids under 1 year go free) and lasts about 45 minutes to an hour.

After the tour at SANCCOB, take your beach buck­ets and spades to Bloubergstrand Beach (#68) for a day of fun and sun, and all of the usual beach activ­it­ies so pop­u­lar with kids. Or try Small Bay Beach — pro­tec­ted behind rocks, there is a play park halfway along the beach spe­cially for the kids. Continued

Things to Do with Kids in the Northern Suburbs

Cool Runnings

... things to Do with Kids in the Northern Suburbs
Heading to the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town, the Play Park at Stodels (#73) in Bellville offers a delight­ful enter­tain­ment area, com­plete with tram­po­lines, sand­pits and an animal farm. Parents can keep a watch­ful eye from the out­side decks of the res­taur­ant while kids get to pet and feed the goats, bun­nies, duck­lings and pig­lets. Another kiddie's delight in Bellville, Jimmy Jungles (#74), is a premier Indoor Adventure Playground that offers super­vised, secure facil­it­ies for tod­dlers and chil­dren from 6 months up to a max­imum height of 1.4m. Jimmy Jungles provide a safe and clean envir­on­ment where chil­dren can learn and have fun at the same time. Continued

Things to Do with Kids in the Cape Helderberg

Build a Bear

... things to Do with Kids in the Cape Helderberg Region
In Somerset West, kids (and grown-up kids) can cre­ate their very own, love­able teddy bear. At "Build a Bear" (#80) little 'bear build­ers' assist in build­ing a 'beary' cute friend start­ing from the wide selec­tion of a basic bear char­ac­ter; to choos­ing and inser­tion of its sig­na­ture giggle, growl / per­sonal mes­sage sound-chip, it's red satin heart place­ment, final seal­ing stitch and bar­cod­ing, to it's ward­robe selec­tion and then it's inter­na­tional nam­ing and all the way home! Continued

Things to Do with Kids in the Cape Winelands

Bugz Play Park

... things to Do with Kids in the Cape Winelands
Head out to the Cape Winelands which offers an amaz­ing array of activ­it­ies for kids. In Paarl you can keep the kids enter­tained at Bugz Play Park (#84) for a few hours. Here you will find a col­our­ful extra­vag­anza of sand­pits, pedal cars, jump­ing castles, row­ing boats, jungle gyms and a choo choo train, and will tire out little ones in no time. Older and more adven­tur­ous little ones can giddy up and trot around on the res­id­ent horseys or tear up the sur­rounds on the selec­tion of quad bikes. Open 7 days a week from 09h30 to 17h00, find them at 56 Tarentaal street, Joostenbergvlakte, Kraaifontein (near Paarl). Continued

Things to Do with Kids in the Cape Overberg

Greyton cyc­ling

... things to Do with Kids in the Cape Overberg
Take a drive out to Greyton and spend a fun day or two explor­ing this quaint town. Take in the beauty of Greyton at your own pace, enjoy­ing the scenery around you — by bicycle! In this won­der­fully scenic town, Greyton Bicycle Hire (#94) provides people of all ages the means with which to view Greyton and the sur­round­ing areas by bicycle or simply to have fun by rid­ing one of the ever increas­ing num­ber of tracks. And for those of you with very 'little ones', Greyton Bicycle Hire even have baby car­ri­ers for their bicycles so the whole fam­ily can join in the fun of explor­ing the coun­tryside. Continued

Kids’ Cape Town

Kids' Cape Town

It’s not always easy trav­el­ling with the kids  — they need almost con­stant enter­tain­ing, and woe betide the par­ent who takes their child on one too many ‘bor­ing’ museum tours. Luckily, Cape Town has some really excit­ing things to do and places to see for intrepid little ones. Read on for kid-friendly hol­i­day activ­it­ies in the Cape ...

The Two Oceans Aquarium at the V&A Waterfront is a fun and inter­act­ive – not to men­tion edu­ca­tional – way to spend an after­noon. Kids can wander around the fas­cin­at­ing Two Oceans gal­ler­ies, tremble at the I&J pred­ator exhibit and have hands-on fun draw­ing and paint­ing or watch­ing a pup­pet show at the AfriSam Children’s Centre. Then head to the Shoreline Cafe for a nibble on the extens­ive kid­dies’ menu ... Continued

5 top spots with kids in Cape Town

Bugz kid­dies play park

Cape Town, with its focus on the great out­doors, is sel­dom short of places to which you can take your chil­dren — beaches, walks, pic­nic spots abound — but there are times when the more formal, child-designated spot comes in handy, and a few of these are worth tak­ing note of.

The top five, in no par­tic­u­lar order (hav­ing gone through no com­pet­it­ive pro­cess to reach these pages other than to have gained my approval), are the Barnyard in Tokai, Bugz in Kraaifontein, Deer Park (also known as Rocklands Park) in Oranjezicht, Imhoff Farm in Kommetjie, and Scarecrows in Hout Bay. Most of these are out­door ven­ues, to accom­mod­ate the gor­geous sum­mer weather, and places where par­ents also get to unwind. Continued

Which two oceans, mum?

Two Oceans Aquarium

It's a pretty valid ques­tion when asked by a four-year old en route to the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, but it had me stum­bling for a moment as, with my indic­ator stuck, my head craned round to see oncom­ing traffic, and my other fin­ger reach­ing for the air con­di­tion­ing that needed a mighty over­haul if you con­sider the angst with which it was emit­ting tepid air, my brain and mouth couldn't get in synch to wrap around the rather meaty 'Indian and Atlantic, love'.

Just as well it isn't the Pacific Ocean that meets the Indian or the Atlantic, or my child would have spent at least ten minutes talk­ing about spe­cif­ics. The Two Oceans Aquarium based at the V&A Waterfront is prob­ably the only major tour­ist attrac­tion to which Capetonians actu­ally go. Continued

Two Oceans Aquarium photographs

Todays pho­to­graphs are a col­lec­tion of pho­to­graphs taken at the Two Oceans Aquarium. The Two Oceans Aquarium at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town is without doubt one of the most excit­ing attrac­tions in the city, par­tic­u­larly if you have chil­dren. Called the Two Oceans Aquarium because the vast Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet here, or almost here at the south­ern tip of the con­tin­ent, the delight­ful under­wa­ter nature reserve dis­plays over 3000 liv­ing sea anim­als, includ­ing sharks, fish, turtles, and pen­guins on dis­play ... Continued

Let's go camping – the best campsites on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast

Lets go camping!

It's vir­tu­ally that time of the year again, when a beach hol­i­day for the fam­ily looms on the hori­zon and vis­ions of just how one is going to wiggle one's way into one's swim attire with a fair amount of grace occu­pies one's thoughts, if only for a moment. The rest of the time is taken up with try­ing to find the right camp­site whilst dither­ing about how best to fit the entire house and the kit­chen sink into the boot of the car!

The KwaZulu-Natal coast­line is the most obvi­ous choice when it comes to end­less sum­mer and warm waters. Along this strip of coast­line between Port Edward and Durban is an unin­ter­rup­ted play­ground of golden beaches, rocky coves, lagoon mouths, grassy slopes and, of course, the warm Indian Ocean that invites hours of water play ... Continued