Aquarium

Bolders Beach Pinguine

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens

There is a granite Celtic cross in Kirstenbosch marking the grave of the garden's first director, Professor Harold Pearson, and it bears the inscription: 'If ye seek his monument, look around.' It is an apt and moving injunction - the grave is surrounded by one of the world's most famous reserves of indigenous flora.

Founded in 1913, Kirstenbosch lies on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain. It consists of landscaped gardens of indigenous plants and trees, watered by the Liesbeek River, as well as natural forest that extends up the lower slopes. Kirstenbosch covers an area of 828Ha, 60 ha of which are cultivated; the remainder is a natural flora reserve. 

It is a living display featuring 4 700 of the estimated 20 000 species of indigenous South African flora, and close to 50 per cent of the Peninsula's floral wealth. In the cultivated area, related plants are grouped together and radiate from the central lawns like the spokes of a wheel. 

Among the interesting sections here are the Cycad Amphitheatre, which hosts most species of these 'living fossils' found in southern Africa; the famed Protea Garden on the higher slopes, with its profuse growth of silver trees (Leucadendron argenteum); the JV Mathews Rock Garden (named after the first curator) containing succulents of the genera Crassula, Aloe, Lampranthus and Euphorbia; the Erica Garden and the Pelargonium Koppie.

Seal Island

World of Birds