Table Mountain National Park

People With Disabilities

Wheelchair Access

View the accessibility features overview for the Northern and Central Sections and Southern and Marine Sections of Table Mountain National Park, as featured in the Rolling Inspiration magazine.

Accommodation

The park accommodation is geared towards hikers and while the camps themselves are equipped with boardwalks that enable mobility, the ablutions are not adapted for wheelchair users, but there are many accessible accommodation options around the park in the city of Cape Town.

Guide Dogs

• We do allow guide dogs into Table Mountain National Park.
• We will however ask you to produce your guide dog card on arrival which lists the following:
  • Your Name and ID number as well as your dog’s name and Microchip number; and
  • The dog should also be on a harness at all times whist in the park.
• If you are unable to produce this card on arrival unfortunately we will not be able to grant you access through the gates.
• You will still be required to pay the relevant conservation fees at the gate you are entering.

Please call the numbers below prior to your arrival to ensure we can facilitate your entry through the park gates.

Accessible Activities & Facilities

There are several tourist destinations within the confines of the TMNP. The major visitor destinations are listed here. These have varying accessibility levels for the mobility impaired.

Table Mountain

The cable way can be assessed by use of a lift which takes one to the ground floor level for departure/arrival of the cable car. Parking can be arranged for people with mobility impairment at the entrance by prior arrangement with the aerial cable way company. On the mountaintop the shop, restaurant and toilets all have ramped access. A series of circular routes in the concession area takes visitors around a portion of the top of the mountain. These routes have a chip stone and concrete surface.

Cape of Good Hope & Cape Point

There are parking bays for the mobility impaired at Cape Point. Access can be gained into the curio shop, the information centre and to the public toilets, which are on the western side of the car park. The ramp descending to these ablution facilities may be too steep for some. The restaurant at Cape Point has a staggered access ramp that permits wheelchairs to move down the steep slope.

There is another accessible toilet in the restaurant. The restaurant’s lower deck overlooking False Bay has a particularly steep ramp and assistance may be required. The Point’s highlight is the funicular that takes people up the steep slope to a lookout point. This allows easy access to a wheelchair user. It does not go all the way to the summit, and to reach this beacon, visitors are required to climb stairs. The toilets at the lookout point have no specific accessibility adaptations, but they are wide enough for a wheelchair to get to the toilet, although the door cannot be closed behind. The lower section of a second curio shop is down a small flight of stairs.

There are several other lookout points in this section of the park. Many of these are accessible by vehicle, but the area’s walks are not wheelchair compatible. The Buffelsfontein Visitors Centre has disabled parking bays, a disabled toilet and is accessible to guests in wheel chairs.

Boulders Beach & Penguin Colony

A well-designed wooden boardwalk allows people with mobility impairment the opportunity to get right down to the penguin colony beach (Foxy Beach). There is also ramped access into the new information centre built on the site of the old degaussing station. Ablutions for wheelchair users are also present here. A boardwalk (“Willis Walk”) provides a firm surface for movement between the Visitor Centre and Boulder’s Bathing Beach. This pathway is quite steep in places. A concrete ramp can be used to access the beach itself, although many will require assistance, as it is very steep.

Silvermine

The Silvermine Dam has a 650 m walkway (part wooden boardwalk and part finely gravelled walkway, and concrete over the dam wall). The boardwalk ramp from the car park to the walkway has been revamped to make this slope less steep and easier for wheelchair access. Ablution facilities have been added at the start of the walkway which include a wheelchair-accessible toilet. There are two specially demarcated parking bays for people with disabilities at the start of the boardwalk.