Chapman's Peak

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Rockfall shelters on Chapman's Peak Drive

Chapman's Peak is the name of a mountain on the western side of the Cape Peninsula, about 15 kilometres south of Cape Town, South Africa. It is opposite the inlet on which the town of Hout Bay is centred. While the eastern flank of the mountain rises fairly gradually, the western flank falls sharply for hundreds of metres into the Atlantic Ocean.

A spectacular road, known as Chapman's Peak Drive, hugs the near-vertical face of the mountain from Hout Bay to Noordhoek. Hacked out of the face of the mountain between 1915 and 1922, the road was at the time regarded as a major feat of engineering. Chapman's Peak Drive was closed in the 1990s, after a rockfall caused a death and a subsequent lawsuit. The road has since been reopened after being re-engineered to protect motorists from falling rocks. It is now a toll road. Currently (April 2008) a regular vehicle like a car pays R 24 for one-way. R 16 for a motorcycle.^[1]

Chapman's Peak Drive is part of the route of two of South Africa's biggest mass-participation races, the Cape Argus Cycle Race and the Two Oceans Marathon.

[edit] Geology

The top of Chapman's Peak consists of flat, sedimentary rocks related to those that form Table Mountain. The base of the mountain, however, consists of Cape Granite and the two formations meet at a geological unconformity that is world-famous amongst earth scientists.

There is an old, abandoned manganese mine on the northwestern slopes of the peak. The remains of a jetty from which the ore used to be shipped is directly below the workings.