Pillars, Neanderthals and the Cape
Jews' Gate to Europa Point: outside the reserve, no closing time, the only sunset walk.
- On foot
- 2 h 15 m
- Distance
- 3.6 km
- Effort
- Easy · step free
- Stops
- 4
Works with no signal
2 MBabout a minute on 4G
Before you set off
Two litres each in summer. The only water inside the reserve is at St Michael's Cabin, and it is not on every walk.
The gates shut at 19:00 in summer and 18:00 in winter, and no path is lit. Work backwards from closing time.
Feeding a macaque is illegal and carries fines up to £4,000. Keep food out of sight and bags closed.
The shape of it
0 m up, 160 m down
The walk
You cannot watch the sunset inside the reserve. It closes before sunset every single day of the year. This is the walk that solves that: Pillars of Hercules, the Gorham's Cave viewing platform (a UNESCO World Heritage Neanderthal site), then Europa Point itself, with a café, toilets and level parking, and Bus 2 running back to town after dark. It's also our step-free, accessibility-friendly route. The cut-down version is a flat, paved 1,011 m loop from the bus stop to the Gorham's platform and back, about an hour, no climbing. Works year-round, even in August. 3.6 km, easy, about two and a quarter hours. It picks up where the summit ridge leaves off, at Jews' Gate.
What you will actually see
four stops. The three with drawings are worth stopping properly for. The rest are a minute of narration and a reason to look up.
1Jews' Gate / Pillars of Hercules
180 m
The edge of the classical world, above the gap the Atlantic came back through in what may be the largest flood in the planet's history.
2Gorham's Cave Viewing Platform
60 m approx.
Somebody scratched a deliberate cross-hatch into that cave floor 39,000 years ago. Nobody knows what it means.
3Europa Point / Harding's Battery / Lighthouse
20 m approx.
The end of the continent: a lighthouse, fourteen kilometres of water, Africa, and the only sunset on the Rock you are allowed to stay for.
- 4
Europa Point Café
20 m approx. · can be skipped
Water, toilets and a chair, outside the gates, so none of it shuts at six.
Where it leaves you
This walk finishes at Europa Point Café. No other walk starts from there, so work out how you are getting back before you set off.