Places Beginning with "B" ...

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From Buffels Bay, we head north across a scrubby, rocky beach littered with dried kelp, a couple of large, featureless dunes, a cross commemorating Vasco Da Gama — the fat cat and sometime sailor who gave the Cape its name, and an abundance of unremarkable undergrowth.

Why my apparent distaste for this particular place? Its delights are documented well enough below, but the main reasons for my lack of enthusiasm are the peaks towering over False Bay. From the sea, they form a vertiginous barrier to any thought of landing but, from experience, I know the coastal strip running along their base as one of the most challenging, rewarding, and dangerous walks in the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve.

But we'll get there. For now, we leave Buffels Bay and the visitors centre at Busffelsfontein, head off to further braai spots at Bordjiesrif, some of the Cape's most amazing surf at Black Rocks, and investigate the lime kiln under Paulsberg at Booi se Skerm. With a detour to Kanonkop to take in the view.

And because we've not many photos to look at, we might as well glance back in time to the original lighthouse at Cape Point — in 1860. Looks kinda different, eh?

Dunes, rocks and sandy beaches in a picturesque setting combine to make Buffels Bay a popular recreational area. ... Reserve management policy demands that recreation which is not strictly compatible with conservation, but allows for an acceptable diversity of utilisation by visitors, should be focused on a small number of appropriate sites. This minimises the need for disturbance and development in the rest of the reserve. Thus we have parking areas, rolling lawns, a tidal swimming pool, braai places and ablution blocks at the bay. Although inevitably detracting from the natural qualities of the reserve, such facilities are essential to cater for a broad spectrum of demands from visitors. Carefully planned and controlled, the infrastructure need not necessarily introduce suburbia into the wilderness. Very busy over the summer holiday season, Buffels Bay is all but deserted for the rest of the year. This is a lovely spot, and it is easy to see why it is so popular with the picnickers and paddlers. Present day visitors are not the first to appreciate the area — it has a long history of human occupation and utilisation, from vegetable farming to whaling. Today's users are, hopefully, more sensitive than their predecessors. As recently as the 1960s a fishing encampment was installed amongst the dunes. The domestic refuse emanating from this informal settlement has been largely removed, but a variety of material still surfaces from time to time. Chop bones and sea shells reflect the preferred diet of these latter-day strandlopers, an abundance of beer bottles their liquid leanings.

A second relatively intensively developed area not far away is Bordjiesrif. Again, the swimming pool and picnic spots are very busy in the summer, particularly over Christmas and New Year. At other times, there is little but the gulls to disturb the tranquillity of the boulder beaches and beckoning beds of kelp.

Further along the False Bay coast, the road runs along the foot of the hills and limestone outcrops to Booi se Skerm. We are told that years ago this was a veritable woodland of coastal shrubs and trees. A few remain, including an important relict patch of kloof forest, but most were chopped down to provide fuel for the local limekiln. Recently restored, this sits with a certain robust dignity under the outcrops which supplied its raison d'etre. The small caves in the cliffs are known as Booi se Skerm, or 'Booi's Shelter'. This stretch of coast loses the sun quite early, being almost oppressively overshadowed by the mountains, but, whoever Booi was, he and previous occupants (who may date back thousands of years) f the caves chose a retreat which affords the finest views of False Bay and the mountains beyond and received the warming sun first thing in the morning.

Michael Fraser and Liz McMahon | Between Two Shores

I'd recommend this book for its content, but not for its writing. The author uses "utilise" twice in the first paragraph, inserts “hopefully”, describes the place as "lovely", and speaks of "beckoning beds of kelp".

Urk! Let's get to the picture show ...

Cape Point: Buffels Bay ...

From Antoniesgat, a short stroll north along the Meadows under Matrooskop brings you to Buffels Bay and the Suikerbrood tidal pool. Cape Point's only easily accessible beach and close to ablution facilities and the Buffelsfontein visitors' centre, Buffels Bay is not my favourite place.

It's full of people and, where you find people and baboons interacting, people generally misbehave.

Tour operators and tourists caught baiting baboons so they can take pictures of them will be criminally charged, the City of Cape Town said on Monday.

"Any tour operator caught doing so can be charged under national conservation legislation," said the city's executive director for the environment Piet van Zyl in a statement.

"We appeal to the public to exercise extreme caution in interacting with baboons. Under no circumstances should they ever feed the animals and should they do so, they can be similarly (sic) charged," he said.

He was responding to newspaper reports according to which tour operators were throwing food onto the roadside to attract baboons for their clients to photograph.

Along with bontebok and ostrich, you'll find a troop of Chacma baboons at Buffels Bay. A sociable and polite bunch (the baboons — ostriches have no social skills), they give the lie to the signs littering Cape Point, i.e. 'Baboons are dangerous'.

Our local primates can be dangerous when indulging habits taught them by humans, e.g. mugging walkers or hijacking cars. A couple of years’ ago I had a bottle of Coke ripped off me from behind and, more recently, watched as two women, enjoying tea on the beach, had their little niceties spread across the South Peninsula.

But I love the buggers, their two-inch canines and bark that separates you from your skin when ambling along some ostensibly deserted ridge or plain. Given due respect — in short, treat them as you'd be treated — baboons make for damned fine company.

If you can get down to Buffels Bay early or on a weekday, you'll probably find it deserted. With braai facilities stretching back to The Meadows, it's an ideal spot to kick back, watch the sea, and burn some meat. Just keep a wary eye on those baboons — or they'll be the ones eating it.