Cape Town chop-chop
Forget the cable car or the open-top City Sightseeing bus. The best way to see Cape Town is from a helicopter. It’s not cheap, but you’ll never forget it.
A helicopter flight works out much cheaper if you can fill the chopper, but if you can’t convince two friends or family members to join you, ask if you can tag along with another group.
Cost: The full peninsula route is the longest and most expensive flight. It costs R2100 per person if there are three passengers on board. Check out cheaper options on the website.
Contact: Base 4 Aviation 021 934 4405; www.base4.co.za
The Robinson R44 helicopter parked on the helipad at the V&A Waterfront looks like a hamster ball with a tail and a rotor… a hamster ball that’s about to take three of us way up into the sky above the Cape Peninsula.
I’m tagging along with two tourists: an elderly brother and sister on holiday from Germany. “My brother vants to know: Vill ve see a vale?” the woman asks our pilot Mike Bothma. He turns around and smiles. “I’ll find you a whale,” his voice crackles through our headsets as the rotors spin faster and faster.
I’ve got the prime seat, up front, and I watch the lights in the cockpit flicker to life. It looks complicated, but Mike is calmer than Tom Cruise in Top Gun as he flicks switches and twists dials.
“Ohhh!” the Germans chorus as the helicopter lifts off and banks over Table Bay. In the evening light, Cape Town looks magical. Faulty traffic lights and car guards mean nothing up here.
We fly slowly over the new Green Point stadium and Sea Point, where ant-sized office workers catch the last bit of sun on the promenade.
Clifton and Camps Bay are next: horseshoes of white sand dwarfed by the mountains and the sea.
Near Llandudno, Mike comes in low over a saddle in the mountains. My heart leaps into my mouth as we crest a ridge and drop off a cliff. Before I can catch my breath we soar back up, over Hout Bay and alongside Chapman’s Peak Drive, where a steady stream of cars navigates its twists and turns.“Vale!” the Germans cry out, but Mike says it’s just a submerged rock.
Noordhoek, Kommetjie and Scarborough scroll past and then the vast expanse of the Cape Point Nature Reserve.
It’s much bigger than I’d thought. Small vleis flow into the ocean next to empty beaches, where huge forests of kelp sway beneath the waves.
When we reach Cape Point itself, Mike hovers for a minute or two, far above the lighthouse where big waves crash against the cliffs. From here we can see all the way up the peninsula. It looks like a life-size relief map in high definition. No one speaks. Words cannot do justice to this view.
I’ve barely finished taking it all in when we’re off again, hugging the False Bay coast, past Smitswinkel Bay, Simon’s Town and Kalk Bay.
The water here is much murkier: Mike says when the southeaster has been blowing like it has, the sea in the bay turns a cloudy green. Not the best for whale spotting. But just off Muizenberg Beach, Mike notices a group beyond the breakers.
“Whales, one ‘o clock,” he says, banking low so the Germans can get a good look. They give an appreciative thumbs-up and click away with their cameras until the animals are lost in the golden reflection of the setting sun.
Mike swings us back on course and soon we’re back in the mountain’s shadow, cruising over the mansions and vineyards of Constantia. The Newlands rugby and cricket stadiums rise up out of the suburbs and I catch a glimpse of my house in Claremont before we round Devil’s Peak, heading
to the harbour.
It feels surreal to climb out of the helicopter, back into the city I’ve just seen from above.
I sit in my car for a while, trying to decide who to call first to gush. In the end, I just sit quietly for a while, letting it all sink in.
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Submitted on 23 August 2011 | 12:08:54
Thanks for wiritng such an easy-to-understand article on this topic.
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