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Sights & Activities
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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.
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