Stormy Travels: Table Mountain

Today is Sunday, January 29, 2023! We had set an alarm for 8am, but turned it off and slept till 9am. When we woke up, we got ready for breakfast and headed to the lounge this morning to see what they had. It was basically the same as the restaurant, if not better! We picked some items from the buffet area and then got to order from a menu. Hunter and I both ordered the eggs royale, which were delicious. I will have to remember to take actual pictures of the food area tomorrow!

Menu we can order from

After breakfast, we finished getting ready and headed out for activities. Our first stop was back to the pick and pay for some drinks and snacks, before catching the hop-on hop-off bus to Table Mountain. The ride there was smooth and we sat in the front on the top of the bus. Once we arrived we got to skip the line and basically immediately go up in a cable car. We were worried initially as we were told the cable car had been closed all morning due to winds, but suspecting to restart at 1pm. We arrived at 12:25 and were on the cable car at 12:40! The ride took approximately 4 minutes and the best part was that the floor rotated so everyone got a chance to be at the windows for clear pictures. I took a video while Hunter took pictures!

Mural on the side of the Watershed

The Cenotaph War Memorial Statue

Climbing up the hill to the cable car at Table Mountain

Cape Town has an extremely unique floral kingdom

The types of rocks that make up Table Mountain

Our first view of the Cable Car cave at the top of the mountain

The other Cable Car

Looking down at the Cable Car station at the base of the mountain

The trail you can walk to climb up (but only part way) instead of taking the Cable Car

Hello other Cable Car!

The view from almost the top

This is Lion's Head, which you can hike up to the top of.

Approaching the top

Video of the ride up the Mountain. You should be able to play the video at 2x speed using the gear icon and selecting playback speed. You may want to keep the volume off as it is pretty windy so there is a lot of empty noise.

When we arrived at the top, we were met with extreme wind. We both quickly put on our sun shirts and I put my hood up as my ears are quite sensitive to wind. We wandered around and took in the incredible views. We then started the hike to Maclear's Beacon, the highest point on the mountain. Our hike out there took about 1 hour. Along the way, we saw a ton of Cape Town's unique plants as well as some lizards and birds. Thankfully we did not run into any of the area's famed snakes as there are a lot of high venomous species here. The beacon is also the highest point in Cape Town and originally dates back over a century to a geologic survey. Although the hike from the cable car station wasn't too bad the crowds thinned out fast and most of the people we ran into over by the beacon had hiked all the way up the mountain themselves. Hunter and I then sat down and had some of our snacks, resting for a while, before continuing the loop back to the cable car station, while on the way there we took a trail on the backside of the mountain by some of Cape Town's original water reservoirs on the way back we took a stunning cliff side route. During the whole hike, Hunter and I were amazed by the views and took so many photos!

Bronze topography of the area

The view of XXXX

Camp's Bay is a wealthy and beautiful suburb similar to Malibu

Lions Head

The cute "shop at the top"

Table Mountain, one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature

Looking toward Hout Bay

Looking towards Simonstown

A juniper like bush we were unable to identify

A local Aloe variant

Red Crassula

Cape Town topography map

Interesting geology

Research project on fog harvesting

Explanation of the tablecloth

Devils Peak

The City "bowl"

A panoramic view really illustrates the bowl shape of the CBD

Starting our hike to Maclear's Beacon

This area had been recently burned whether by natural or man-made causes we don't know

The top of Platteklip Gorge a Walter's Wiggles on steroids type ascent

Water left behind from the previous day's tablecloth

Board walks for the marshy sections

Lots of reeds/cat tails

Cape Town's famous Protea flower, about the size of a fist and gorgeous

We made it to Maclear's Beacon!

Snack time! Eet-sum-more shortbreads!

Indicator for those who lost their lives in the war of 1914-1918

This girl asked us to take her photo!

Hiking back to the cable car

Hiking RIGHT along the edge

Looking down towards our hotel

Us and Cape Town!

The cable car headed down against the ocean

We still have a ways to go!

The rock formations here are super neat. It definitely isn't something I would have expected here!

More water

The trail got a lot closer than this

We found a black-girdled lizard, which is one of many species unique to Table Mountain

Making friends with the black-girdled lizard!

Resting at one of the waypoints

Redwing Starling

Birds enjoying the recently burned area

Butterfly Crassulas high above the coast road

Sadly we did not get to see any of these little local pikas, but we heard some!

On the ride down

Other cable car headed up, the high altitude winds here make for amazing skies

After our hike, we made our way back to the cable car and returned to the base of the mountain. We then got back on the hop-on hop-off bus to the Camps Bay stop, where we then continued onto Hout Bay with Uber. Somehow it was already 5:30 and we were hungry, so we decided to try the highly recommend seafood spot bistro wharfette, inside the mariner's wharf harbour front emporium! We got in line and ordered Hake, Calamari, a local favourite Snoek pronounced (snow+k), and of course chips. The food was delicious, and a classic greasy fish and chips was just what we wanted today!