Chapman's Peak Drive

Sights & Activities

Chapman's Peak Drive
Scenic Drive, Hout Bay

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After being closed for several years due to rock slides and unstable cliff faces, this fantastically scenic drive has reopened after a major reconstruction that involved state-of-the-art engineering techniques, some of which had never been used on South African roads. But that wasn't the first engineering feat for this road that clings to the mountainside. Work began on the drive in 1910, when it was considered an impossibility. Charl Marais, a mining surveyor, wasn't deterred by the task and set about surveying a route by sending a worker ahead of him to chop out footholds and create rudimentary platforms for his theodolite. There are stories of him hanging on to the side of the cliff by ropes and nearly losing his life on a number of occasions. His tenacity paid off, and, with the help of 700 convicts, dynamite, picks, and shovels, a road was chipped and blasted out of the rock. Chapman's Peak Drive officially opened in 1922. A reporter from a local newspaper waxed lyrical, writing that the road was much like a woman, "always changing, luring, and at moments giving you a quick sense of danger." You can access the drive from both Noordhoek and Hout Bay.