I’m catching up a little on blogs here. Earlier this year we headed to Cape Town where we met up with my parents. The thing I really loved about Cape Town was having outdoor sports almost within the city. We were able to hike in the mountains and see almost no one else most of the time, before coming down and having a great meal in a busy waterfront restaurant, sipping Cape Wine.
Our first outdoor adventure in Cape Town was Table Mountain. There was just the girls and I. Zoe was still in Maputo working and my parents took the cable car to the top and were going to meet us for lunch at the top. It was April, so late summer and still quite warm as we took the path from the cable station up. Above us was the wall of table mountain, a line of tall vertical sandstone cliffs with very few chinks in the defences. My understanding of the route was that we went up a little, then needed to traverse a few miles across the face of the mountain to reach the walking route up, through a gap in the cliff. This was the plan until we got to the cross roads (or cross paths).
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When we got there the standard route to the top was signposted to the left. The route ahead had a signpost on the floor which intrigued us. Warning very dangerous route ahead. This seemed like a good advert for the route ahead being the way to go as far as I could tell. Not only that but the route we planned was labelled as a recommended safe hiking route, which made it sound a little dull. As the route ahead mentioned rock climbing and we had no more rock climbing equipment than the shoes on our feet I did a little due diligence and googled the route. All looked good, no rope needed, so ahead it was.
While our original intended route traversed the side of the mountain, our new route headed steeply straight up the side of the mountain, leading us towards the cliff at the top. The route did not disappoint with interesting scrambling on the way and the odd staple and ladder put in place where the scrambling turned more into climbing. This made for a fun route that we enjoyed. The direction of travel was worrying us as we were getting closer and closer to the bottom of a huge vertical cliff that led to the top. The cable car route was going directly above us dangling over our head. We could see a couple of people climbing up the rock face ahead of us with ropes and harnesses. I hoped this wasn’t where the route was taking us. But worryingly, it was the exact direction we were heading.
Once we got to the bottom of the cliff there was, reassuringly a path traversing to the right around the bottom of the cliff. The path was pretty thin in places with a cliff to our left and a steep drop to our right. But as we made progress it became clear that the route was taking us on a traverse around the base of the cliff, rather than directly up it. It finished in a beautiful gully making steep progress to the top of Table Mountain.
Once at the top we enjoyed the views and it was suddenly packed as the cable car was delivering large numbers of toursists to the top. We have a nice at the cafe before I walked down while the girls decided to try out a cable car descent with my parents.
We hiked again in the mountains this time with Zoe, heading up from Camps bay, so up the back of the mountain. It was amazing that, as with the previous India Venster route, despite us being basically in a busy city, we saw almost no one once we got on the mountain, until we again reached the cable car station at the top.
Another adventure we really enjoyed was Chapmans Peak. This is a road running along the sea, cut into the cliffs. It gives stunning views of the mountains and the sea and is a route commonly used for filming car adverts and car chases in films. We first did it via car on the way back from the penguin colony. Once we’d seen it, it was clear to us that we needed to return with road bikes. So a couple of days later Zoe, Harriett and I were in our house in Bo Kaap, road bikes at the ready for a day trip.
To get from Bo Kaap over to Camps bay and the road to Chapmans peak there is a mountain in the way so the route starts pretty much from the word go steeply up towards the saddle between Lions peak and Table mountain. From there it’s a fun ride down the other side and then a good few tens of kilometers to the start of the route. As we got closer to the route it became obvious it was going to be very blowy on the road. The wind was coming diagonally at us so kind of bringing us to a stop while blowing us out to sea all at the same time. There were a couple of bends we went round where the wind hit us hard, sending us out into the middle of the road or bringing us to a complete stop. As we were on the inside of the road that wasn’t too bad. What was worrying me was the way back where we would be on the sea side of the road and a wobble too far that way would mean a very long fall and a land on some rocks hundreds of feet below, or in the sea. Neither seemed tempting.
The scenery was stunning, but to be honest we were focussing more on the ride than the view. We took a break at the top (the road goes gradually up to a peak, then gradually down the other side). The route down was more relaxing. The wind seemed less on this side of the route and clearly there was much less physical demands as we were going down. I was braced for wind impact at each turn, but it was never bad and we were soon down and having lunch at a cafe. While chatting to Harriett over lunch it became apparent she thought we were back in Cape Town and that the route was circular, instead of the straight line out that it was. She was a little shocked that we needed to do it all in reverse after lunch.
But that’s what we did. Luckily the wind on the far side had died down since the morning and so we didn’t feel we were going to be pushed off the road on every corner. It was a hard but enjoyable ride and one that had to be done while we were in Cape Town.
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