Noordhoek

Noordhoek's Long Beach is the Cape Peninsula at its most cinematic: eight kilometres of wide, white sand stretching from the foot of Chapman's Peak all the way to Kommetjie. It's so vast that even on a busy day it feels empty.

This is the beach of famous images — horse riders galloping through the shallows at sunset, kite surfers carving the wind line, and the rusting bones of the Kakapo, a steamship that ran aground here in 1900 and never left.

From the water, the view is even better: the full face of Chapman's Peak rising sheer above the sand, with the famous drive cut impossibly into the cliffs. We cruise this stretch on the way south from Hout Bay — a front-row seat to one of the great coastal panoramas anywhere.