The Phantom Bus of Kloof Nek: Cape Town’s Most Stylish Ghost

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Cape Town is one of those cities that looks like it was designed by someone showing off. You’ve got mountains, beaches, fancy coffee, and a permanent breeze that makes everyone’s hair behave like it’s auditioning for a shampoo advert. But beneath all that postcard perfection, Cape Town also has its fair share of ghosts. Not the spooky, dripping-blood-from-the-ceiling kind — more the kind that politely remind you that this city has seen things. And perhaps the most famous of them all is the Phantom Bus of Kloof Nek.

If you’ve ever driven that winding road between Table Mountain and Lion’s Head at night, you’ll know it’s the kind of route that makes your knuckles go white. Steep drops, hairpin turns, and that eerie feeling that the mountain itself is watching you. Add a few legends, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for Cape Town’s most elegant haunting. For nearly a century, people have reported seeing a double-decker bus — red, shining, lights blazing — hurtling down Kloof Nek Road with nobody at the wheel.

The first sightings go back to the 1930s, long before anyone could blame load shedding or bad headlights. Motorists swore they’d see the bus coming straight for them, speeding around the bend, only for it to vanish into thin air. Some claimed it appeared at the exact same spot each time. Others said they could even hear the brakes screeching. The first man to officially report it apparently swerved to avoid the bus and landed in a ditch. When police arrived, there was no vehicle, no driver, no tyre marks — just a very confused Capetonian insisting he’d nearly been flattened by public transport that didn’t exist.

As stories tend to do in this city, the tale grew faster than a Woodstock brewery menu. People started calling it “the Kloof Nek Ghost Bus,” and by the 1950s, it was one of Cape Town’s most talked-about urban legends. Newspapers ran stories about it. Taxi drivers refused to drive that stretch after midnight. Hikers swore they’d seen a red flash between the rocks. And like any good ghost worth its salt, it even got its own upgrade: sometimes the bus now had passengers, described as “faceless,” which is just a polite way of saying “don’t ask questions, just floor it.”

Nobody knows exactly where the legend came from, though a few theories make the rounds every so often. Some say a real bus once lost control there, plunging down the mountain and taking its passengers with it — which, to be fair, sounds like the most Cape Town way to die. Others claim it’s the restless spirit of public transport itself, doomed to forever haunt the one city where MyCiTi buses are on time. Then there’s the theory I like best: that it’s not a ghost at all, but a kind of collective imagination. A story so good, so perfectly local, that it keeps reappearing just because we want it to.

And who wouldn’t want it? Cape Town is beautiful, yes, but it’s also dramatic. This city thrives on atmosphere — mist rolling in over Signal Hill, headlights glowing through fog, the hum of the sea somewhere in the distance. If you drive through Kloof Nek on a cold night, you’ll understand how a story like that could stick. The mountain feels alive. The road feels narrow and endless. And even if you don’t believe in ghosts, there’s always that one bend that makes you glance twice at your rear-view mirror.

Locals treat the story with the kind of fond fear that only Capetonians can manage. They’ll joke about it over coffee, roll their eyes, and then still check their side mirrors when they drive past after dark. Taxi drivers tell passengers, “If you see it, don’t scream — just greet.” It’s part of the city’s personality now, like the wind or the traffic on the M3. Some people even say that the ghost bus is harmless, a kind of guardian spirit keeping watch over that treacherous mountain road. That might just be Cape Town’s way of refusing to let anything scary stay scary for long.

The thing about ghost stories is that they say more about the living than the dead. Every haunting carries a piece of history, even if it’s wrapped in exaggeration. Maybe the Phantom Bus is really about fear — not of the supernatural, but of losing control. Maybe it’s about the anxiety that comes with speed, cliffs, and the kind of beauty that makes you forget the danger underneath. Or maybe it’s just a very stylish bit of folklore, because if Cape Town’s going to have a ghost, of course it’s going to ride a double-decker.

Whether it’s real or not, the legend has outlived generations of storytellers. People still report strange lights, unexplained sounds, or the feeling of wind rushing past when no car has gone by. Every few years, a new “eyewitness” pops up, usually a tourist or a late-night driver. And every time it happens, the city smiles knowingly. Some places have haunted castles or cursed forests. We’ve got a ghost bus with good lighting.

What makes it special is that it’s ours. It’s not borrowed from some European folklore or Hollywood ghost tale. It’s local, born on our roads, shaped by our mountains, and fuelled by our imagination. The Phantom Bus of Kloof Nek is Cape Town distilled: mysterious, unpredictable, and just a little too glamorous to be entirely believable.

So if you ever find yourself driving down Kloof Nek Road on a misty evening, keep your eyes open. Maybe you’ll see nothing. Maybe you’ll spot a flash of red in your headlights. Or maybe you’ll catch the reflection of a double-decker roaring silently past — a stylish reminder that some stories refuse to fade, especially in a city that thrives on drama.