Boulders Beach or Betty’s Bay: South Africa’s Penguin Colonies

Boulders Beach and Betty’s Bay are the two land-based African penguin colonies you can visit near Cape Town, and Boulders is the busier and dearer of the pair. Boulders Beach sits at Simon’s Town, inside Table Mountain National Park, 50 minutes from the city centre. Betty’s Bay is 90 minutes away, and its colony at Stony Point Nature Reserve charges a fraction of the Boulders fee for the same close-up boardwalk view. Go to Boulders if you have one morning and no car heading east; visit both if you are driving the R44 towards the Overberg.

We ended up doing exactly that. While putting together our South Africa itinerary I kept reading that Boulders was the place to see penguins, and also that it was crowded and overpriced, so I looked for a second option. Stony Point was on our route through South Africa anyway, and we went to both.

Visiting the Boulders Beach penguins

Boulders Beach is a sheltered cove of granite boulders at Simon’s Town where African penguins nest among the rocks and the bush. Boulders is one section of Table Mountain National Park, so South African National Parks (SANParks) runs it and a daily conservation fee applies at the gate. The section holds three beaches, one penguin viewing area and three boardwalks.

We arrived a little before noon and parked in the designated car park, where a friendly attendant made sure we knew he was there and would be expecting change on our return. People were playing music and selling things to the passing traffic. On the far corner of the lot is Cafe Penguino, at 18 Kleintuin Road on the pedestrian street down to the colony, where we stopped for coffee first.

The penguins are protected twice over. A belt of bush separates the colony from the road and the houses behind it, and the granite boulders that give the beach its name shelter the birds from wind and swell. SANParks has put plastic nest boxes in the bush, so you see penguins well back from the water as well as on the sand.

Foxy Beach, and where the penguins actually are

Foxy Beach is where the penguins are easiest to see, because the boardwalks run through the colony there rather than past it. The boardwalk is also the only place you are allowed to stand: the penguins roam freely and visitors do not. Do not lean over the rail or reach out, because an African penguin’s beak is sharp enough to draw blood and it will use it when it feels cornered.

Take the small bush path to the left as you leave the main entrance and you come out at Foxy Beach, with more black and white showing through the green along the way. Your Boulders ticket covers it and there is no second fee. We turned back at the small cabin thinking there was one, which is the single thing I would do differently.

Boulders Beach entrance fee

Boulders Beach costs R55 (about €3, $3, £3) for a South African adult and R245 (about €13, $15, £11) for an international adult, on the SANParks tariffs running from 1 November 2025 to 31 October 2026. Conversions use the mid-market rate on 11 September 2026 and move with the rand.

Three rules at the gate catch people out. Boulders is cash-free, so bring a debit or credit card. The standard international rate is charged automatically, and South Africans have to ask for the local rate and show an ID, a driver’s licence or a passport with an SA ID number before they go through. A Wild Card membership gets you in, but only as a paper or electronic membership letter, because the plastic cards are no longer accepted. Current rates are published on the SANParks tariff page for Table Mountain National Park.

Boulders Beach opening hours and how to get there

Boulders gate opens daily at 08h00 and closes at 17h00. Boulders Beach is part of Simon’s Town, on the False Bay side of the Cape Peninsula, and the drive from central Cape Town takes about 50 minutes on good roads. Parking is limited and fills fast in summer, so arrive early, and check the tide if you want beach as well as birds.

Visiting the Betty’s Bay penguins at Stony Point

Stony Point Nature Reserve at Betty’s Bay is the second colony, and CapeNature says it is the third largest African penguin breeding colony in the world. Stony Point is quieter than Boulders, cheaper, and organised the same way: a timber boardwalk carries you through the middle of the colony while the birds get on with their day.

The car park sits on the site of the old Waaygat whaling station, which processed whales here in the early to middle of the last century. Information boards explain what happened where, the concrete remnants are still standing, and a community-run restaurant called On the Edge sits next to the reserve. When we walked in it was far calmer than Boulders had been, which may have been the season or the extra hour from Cape Town.

There were fewer penguins here than at Boulders, but still plenty, and they have the same man-made nest boxes. The colony is less separated from the human world: a row of houses starts where the birds stop, which made it feel a little less wild to me. Watch the seaward rocks as well, because Bank, Cape, Crowned and White-breasted cormorants all breed there and dassies sit out on the stone.

Stony Point entrance fee and opening hours

Stony Point costs R45 (about €2, $3, £2) for an adult and R30 (about €1.60, $1.85, £1.35) for a child aged 4 to 17, on CapeNature’s 2026 tariff. A Wild Card is accepted. The reserve is open 08h00 to 16h30, the last permit is issued at 15h45 and the boardwalk closes at 16h00, so a late-afternoon arrival is cutting it fine.

Stony Point no longer takes cash. CapeNature moved Stony Point, Robberg, Keurbooms River, Bird Island and Walker Bay to cashless operation on 2 February 2026, and the gate now accepts cards, Scan to Pay and pre-booked online permits only. Older guides, this one included until now, told visitors that Stony Point was cash-only. If the card machine is down, you can buy a permit on your phone; the cut-off for same-day online purchases at Stony Point is 15h30.

Getting there is a drive rather than a bus ride. From Cape Town take the N2, turn off before Sir Lowry’s Pass, join the R44 at Gordon’s Bay and follow the coast past Rooi Els and Pringle Bay. CapeNature puts the trip at 70 to 90 minutes depending on traffic through Somerset West, and the R44 along the Kogelberg coast is worth the drive on its own. Hiring a car is the only practical way to get there, so compare rates through DiscoverCars if you plan to pair the two colonies in a day.

Boulders Beach or Betty’s Bay: which one should you pick?

Pick Boulders Beach if you have one day and are staying around Cape Town. Boulders has more birds, a swimming beach, cafes within walking distance and an easier drive, and the crowds that put people off are a high-season problem rather than a year-round one. They were no trouble at all in early September.

Pick both if you are driving east on a road trip. Stony Point takes an hour at most and costs R45 a head, so the second colony barely registers on a budget, and Betty’s Bay adds something Boulders cannot: whale watching from the same boardwalk in season, on the site of a whaling station.

When to go, and what the moult changes

African penguins are at both colonies all year round, so there is no closed season and no wrong month. What changes is how many birds are ashore and what they are doing, because the annual moult and the feeding trips that follow it move large numbers in and out.

Penguins go through what biologists call a catastrophic moult: they shed and replace every feather at once, which leaves them unable to swim. A moulting penguin is stuck on land for roughly 21 days and eats nothing for the whole stretch, so it fattens up beforehand and heads out to sea afterwards to feed. SANParks puts the peak moult at Boulders in December, which is also the peak tourist month, so a December visit means plenty of stationary, scruffy-looking birds on the sand.

We went at the beginning of September and saw a good number from every stretch of boardwalk, even though more of them are at sea feeding then than in midsummer. If you want the beach itself, South African summer from November to April is warmer and far busier.

African penguins are critically endangered

The African penguin was uplisted from Endangered to Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2024, the first penguin species to reach that category. Fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs are left in the wild, and the decline is driven by competition with commercial fishing for sardine and anchovy, shifting fish stocks, oil spills and habitat loss. That is why both colonies are fenced, patrolled and roped with boardwalk.

Boulders is one of the few colonies moving the other way. SANParks counted 790 breeding pairs at Boulders in the June 2026 census, up from 698 in 2025, in a survey run with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, the City of Cape Town and SANCCOB. Stony Point has also recorded a measurable rise. Neither trend is a recovery, but these are the two colonies where the numbers have gone up rather than down.

The rules at both colonies

Five rules apply at Boulders and Stony Point alike, and they exist because the birds are a few metres away and used to people. They are listed below.

1. Stay on the boardwalk inside the viewing area, and never climb over a fence or rail.
2. Keep your hands, phone and selfie stick inside the rail, and do not touch or feed any bird.
3. Leave dogs at home, because neither reserve permits them.
4. Leave alcohol, cigarettes and vessels such as canoes and kayaks outside the colony.
5. Take nothing off the beach, because Boulders lies inside a no-take zone of the park’s marine protected area.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

Five things we learned at the two colonies, or checked afterwards, are listed below.

1. Bring a card, not cash, to either colony. Boulders has been card-only for years, and Stony Point went cashless on 2 February 2026. Older guides still say Stony Point takes cash only, which is now exactly backwards.
2. Walk the bush path to Foxy Beach before you leave Boulders. It is included in your ticket and it is where the boardwalks run through the colony. We turned back at the small pay cabin thinking it was a separate charge, and only found out afterwards that it was not.
3. Ask for the South African rate at the Boulders gate before you pay. The international rate is applied automatically, no refund is given once you are through, and you need an ID, a licence or a passport showing an SA ID number.
4. Reach Stony Point by 15h30 at the latest. The last permit goes out at 15h45, the boardwalk shuts at 16h00 and the gate at 16h30, so a 16h00 arrival buys you nothing.
5. Park somewhere visible at Boulders and keep small change. Parking attendants work the lot, they will be there when you get back, and the car park fills early in summer.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes in this post come from her September visit to Boulders Beach at Simon’s Town and the Stony Point colony at Betty’s Bay, on a self-drive route through the Western Cape. The team covers South Africa for independent travellers, including the tours, hotels and car hire worth booking, and updates this page when entry fees, opening hours and payment rules change.