The last weekend of August we flew to Cape Town for a long weekend (3 days) and visited Hermanus, which claims to be “the best land-based whale watching” location in the world. A very tall claim that we needed to check out!

The trip was amazing! The weather was sunny with summery temperatures of 26C/61F, after it had been miserably cold and wet for a few days. Hermanus is a nice town where you can easily walk around the towncenter and next to the ocean. The accomodation was great – we stayed at a self-catering apartment right by the ocean that gave us great views over the bay (If you visit the website – select the left hand section for 45 marine drive, not the right hand section for the Esplanade). And Hermanus MUST be the best place to see whales – we saw many, including some close to shore, some breaching (this is where they jump out of the ocean), some sailing (this is where they stick their tale out of the water for an extended period of time), some waving (where they stick one of their fins up and seem to be waving) and we saw some mothers playing with their youngsters! We also heard the whales making noises as if they were calling to each other.

This must be one of the nicest experiences we had, yet, in South Africa. Definitely worth a visit during whale season (July-October)!

As always, we had our cameras with us and took some great pictures of Hermanus and surroundings as well as the whales. Click here or on the picture to go to the album.

Hermanus Album