Table Mountain

Having travelled all this way to Cape Town we didn't want to miss the opportunity to explore some of the highlights while we were there, of course. Our activity packed weekend started Friday afternoon with convincing Patricia's colleagues to join us on a scramble up Table Mountain the following day.

There are many options to ascent this iconic mountain. The easiest and probably most commonly used one is the cable car. Then there are a bunch of walking routes which are physically but not necessarily technically challenging. The most famous being Platteklip Gorge, which starts a little to the East of the lower cable station and zigzags its way up. For the more adventurous, there are furthermore at least a handful of scrambling routes to choose from, which are steeper than the walking paths and have at least one or several slightly technical and/or exposed sections. And finally, there are proper rock climbing routes.

Patricia's colleagues needed a little convincing at first (some more, others less) but eventually we managed to assemble a multi-national (Josh - RSA, Brian - IRE, and the two of us) crack team to climb the mountain via the India Venster route. Meanwhile, a second all-African team consisting of Emanuel and his mate decided to ascend the mountain via Platteklip and meet the rest at the top.

The India Venster team hit the trail Saturday morning shortly after 9am. After a bit of squabbling over who is the manliest of the lot and can carry the heaviest backpack we set off with a decent pace, only pausing a few times to enjoy the views across Lion's Head, Robben Island and Cape Town's City Bowl.

Soon the path steepened markedly and it didn't take long before we started using our hands as well as our feet. Swathes of mist added to the atmosphere, with the upper cable station popping out of and disappearing in it every now and then.

A short section of the route is almost vertical but chains and other climing aids make it more managable even for the less experienced. Although, one still need to keep cool and not panic because of the exposure of the situation.

It took us about 2 hours to get to the top where we met with the all-African contingent who had won the race and ended up waiting around at the top for us for a while.

While these guys headed down again the route they had taken up, the rest of us had lunch in a sheltered spot, which was interrupted by a few inquisitive dassies. Clearly raiding tourists' picnics is one of their favourite pastimes.

Patricia's colleagues needed to get back home after lunch so we took the cable car down to save a bit of time. This left the two of us with the afternoon to explore Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. One could easily spend a day or more there, but even in the shorter space of time that we had we available one can get a grasp for the South African biodiversity that is represented in these gardens, and especially the Western Cape's Fynbos.

We also bumped into a few of these fellas, golden orb-web spiders. They look fairly impressive but apparently they are also fairly harmless.

Overall a successful and memorable Saturday!
More photos in higher resolution here.