Bainskloof and Du Toitskloof

1Constantia

The wooded eastern flank of Table Mountain rises right above this point, a few kilometres from Constantia, where the southern suburbs meet the forests and the mountain. This is Cape Town's green side: oak avenues, pine and gum plantations, old estates and the cool, shaded slopes that catch the clouds when the southeaster blows. Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden lies along the same slope, and on its terraces you can walk among proteas, ericas and other plants of the Cape Floral Kingdom with the mountain towering overhead.

The roads here wind through the trees. Rhodes Drive runs along the mountain from Constantia Nek past Kirstenbosch toward Newlands, a narrow, curving road shaded by old trees, with glimpses of the mountain through the branches. It is slow, often busy and shared with cyclists, but beautiful, especially in the early morning light. The forests of Cecilia and Newlands have walking trails up toward the mountain, and the air smells of pine, damp earth and fynbos.

2Constantiakm 12

Constantia is where wine began in South Africa, and it still has the air of a place that knows it. The valley lies on the eastern side of the Table Mountain chain, sheltered from the Atlantic, with old oak avenues, whitewashed Cape Dutch farmhouses and vineyards climbing toward the steep slopes of the Constantiaberg. It is one of Cape Town's leafiest and wealthiest suburbs, but the farms are open to visitors and the roads around it are some of the most beautiful in the city.

The story starts with Simon van der Stel, the Dutch East India Company governor, who was granted the land in 1685 and built Groot Constantia, whose gabled manor house is now a museum. A century later the farm's sweet wine, Vin de Constance, was famous across Europe: Napoleon had it shipped to him in exile on St Helena, and Jane Austen mentions Constantia wine in Sense and Sensibility as a cure for a broken heart. The style was revived in modern times and you can taste it today, along with the region's sauvignon blanc, which loves the cool breezes from False Bay.

3Near Cape Townkm 27

Few cities give you a finish line like this one. You roll into central Cape Town with Table Mountain standing over the whole bowl of the city, flat-topped and close enough to feel personal, Devil's Peak on one side and Lion's Head and Signal Hill on the other. The point on the map sits in the old centre near the Company's Garden, the patch of land the Dutch East India Company planted in the seventeenth century to supply its ships with vegetables on the way to the East.

The rides that end here, over Bainskloof and Du Toitskloof or up the West Coast to see the spring flowers, are long days, and the approach back into town is usually the N1 or N7, busy and fast. Bainskloof Pass deserves a word: it was built by Andrew Geddes Bain in the 1850s and still runs on his stone walls, a narrow, slow, beautiful road above a river gorge where you should expect gravel on the inside of bends and baboons on the parapet. Du Toitskloof is the wide modern alternative over the same mountains, with a long tunnel option for when the weather turns.

4Cape Townkm 27

Cape Town sits at the foot of Table Mountain, a flat-topped sandstone wall about a kilometre high, and on a day when the tablecloth of cloud spills over the edge it is one of the great sights of the world. The city lies between the mountain and the Atlantic, with a harbour that was founded in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company as a supply station for ships on the route to the East. It grew into a port of many cultures, and the mix of Dutch, Malay, African and British influences is still visible in its food, language and architecture.

Robben Island, visible from the waterfront, was where Nelson Mandela spent eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison, and ferries run from the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. The city centre has the Company's Garden, the Castle of Good Hope, the colourful Bo-Kaap quarter and the lively bars of Long Street. The winds can be fierce, especially the southeaster known as the Cape Doctor, which blows in summer and can make riding hard work.

5Atlantiskm 79

Atlantis is not a postcard town, and nobody here pretends it is. It was built from scratch in the 1970s on the sandy plains north of Cape Town, part of the apartheid government's plan to move coloured families out of the city and to create an industrial centre far from the suburbs. The result was a planned town of factories, schools and housing estates, some forty-five kilometres from the city, which still struggles with unemployment and crime. It is worth understanding that history as you ride through.

What the area offers is landscape. Around the town lie the Atlantis dunes, a great sea of white sand that has been used for sandboarding, quad biking and, of course, filming. The flat sandveld here is covered in tough, low scrub, part of the fynbos and strandveld vegetation of the West Coast, and in late winter and spring, roughly August and September, the plains burst into colour as wild flowers bloom after the rain.

6Near Stellenbosch, on the way backkm 147

7Stellenboschkm 161

Stellenbosch is the second-oldest European settlement in South Africa, founded in 1679 by the governor Simon van der Stel, who named it after himself and his wife's family, and it has the look of a town that has been carefully looked after. Oak trees line the streets, white Cape Dutch houses with curved gables stand behind them, and the mountains rise on every side, purple at dusk. It is also a university town, home to the Afrikaans-speaking Stellenbosch University, which gives the centre a young, lively atmosphere.

The wine country surrounds it, and the roads out are among the loveliest in the Western Cape. Head east on the R310 up the Helshoogte Pass toward Franschhoek, a village founded by French Huguenot refugees in the late seventeenth century, and the road climbs through vineyards and pine plantations, with views over the valley as it twists around bends. Other options include the Jonkershoek valley, a quiet dead-end valley full of fynbos, and the long loop over Sir Lowry's Pass to the coast. Traffic can be heavy on weekends and in the harvest season, and the Cape's winter, from June to August, is cold and wet, so spring and autumn are best.

8Bainskloof andkm 218

The name means wood bay in Dutch, because the early settlers cut timber from the forests in this valley to build and heat Cape Town. Today the harbour is lined with fish-and-chip stalls, and boat trips run out to Duiker Island, a rock covered in noisy Cape fur seals. Behind the village rise the sharp peaks of the Twelve Apostles and the Sentinel, a rock that looks like a sleeping giant.

The coast road from Hout Bay climbs onto the shoulder of the mountain and runs along cliffs high above the sea. Sea mist, called the Cape Doctor on the wind-blown days, rolls over the ridges, and the temperature can drop ten degrees in minutes. Around here, the mountain slopes carry fynbos with proteas and ericas, and in spring the hillsides are covered with colour. Dassies, the rock hyraxes, sun themselves on the stone walls.