Hiking Table Mountain 2: Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Skeleton Gorge, Maclear’s Beacon, and Table Mountain

Sunday (9/28/08)
The hike was to start from Kirstenbosch Gardens and was predicted to last between 5 and 7 hours. Girl, Constance, and I arrived at the botanical garden around 9am and waited for the arrival of the other three members of our party (Paul, David, and the Prof) who were taking care of vehicle logistics. The plan for the day was to start hiking from the gardens and finish at the cable car station so we could take a ride down the mountain. While we waited for the other three people to finish parking the cars at the necessary locals, we walked around a small area of the gardens. Being a botanical garden, there were many types of colorful flowers, trees, bushes, and shrubs. There was even some “wildlife” there that seemed to be pretty content with our presence. We walked the garden for about an hour and then met up with the other three at the ticket gate.

Bird of Paradise

Guinea Fowl eating breakfast

Basking in the morning sun

We started hiking a little after 10:15am. An easy stroll through the gardens took us to the foot of the mountain. We started ascending the slope via a well marked trail until we came to the main Contour Path (so named because it follows the basic contour of the mountain). After walking along this trail for a while we came to the base of Skeleton Gorge, where the steeper ascent of our hike began. Once in the gorge we were surrounded by a dense cover of trees which provided us with some welcomed shade from the hot sun. We walked along the edge of a stream until we came to a rockfall area with some really large boulders. There were a couple of wooden ladders that had been placed in the ravine that we had to climb, but the rest of the climb up the gorge consisted of scrambling up and over boulders in the stream.

Starting off from the garden

Girl at the Contour Path overlooking the garden

Danger!

Hiking up Skeleton Gorge

Girl ascending the first of several ladders

Boulder scrambling

Small waterfall along the side of Skeleton Gorge

As we neared the top of the gorge the trees began to thin out allowing us to see some really nice views over False Bay and Cape Town. We could even see all the way to the Hottentot Holland Mountains on the other side of the valley.

At the top of the gorge we decided to make our way to “the beach” for lunch. This is the same white quartz sand dune we had eaten lunch on during our first hike up the mountain. After lunch and a much needed rest from climbing we continued our hike along the eastern flank of the mountain to Maclear’s Beacon (1,086m (3,563ft) above sea level), the highest point on Table Mountain. The elevation doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider that Cape Town is only at around 7m (22ft) above sea level it becomes a bit more impressive.

Girl high-stepping up the slope

Taking a break

From Maclear’s Beacon we saw some pretty spectacular views: the whole of the Table Mountain chain, Table Bay, Robben Island, Devil’s Peak, and even Cape Point. We took another break from hiking just to take in the views and click some photos.


Girl at Maclear's Beacon

Guy and Girl with Devil's Peak popping up in the back

Table Bay

Robben Island

Cape Point way in the background

Hiking along the top of the Upper Table

Guy and Girl with Cape Town City Center in background

Lions Head (left) and Signal Hill (right) with Robben Island in background

Long way down

Our ride to the bottom

About an hour after leaving the beacon we finally arrived at the cableway station area. We visited the various viewing platforms stationed along the rim, took more photos, and yes, enjoyed more views.

Paul, Constance, the Prof, Girl, and Guy....David took the photo

We then tackled one of the toughest obstacles on the mountain – buying a ticket to ride down in the cable car. When we reached the building that said “ticket booth” we discovered that it had been moved into the gift shop. It makes sense from a marketing standpoint to place the ticket booth inside the gift shop since if forces more people to enter the gift shop which, in turn, increases the likelihood that people will buy something. I understand this strategy and it is fine to do if you have a building large enough to accommodate both the gift shop and the ticket booth! The gift shop was so small that it was difficult to even enter because of the large number of people that were in there. And of course the ticket booth had to be at the back of the store making it an ever so pleasant ticket buying experience. In order to find the end of the ticket buying line you had to snake your way around and through the hoards of people who were crammed into the narrow aisles and were busily looking at the endless varieties of mugs, hats, and trinkets. After a good 20min in the ticket line and another 15min in the cable car line, we finally made our way down the mountain in the revolving cable car.

For those of you out there wondering about the views from the cable car I cannot tell you about them. My irrational fear of heights meant that I was standing in the middle of the car either staring up at the roof or focusing on some random item that some other passenger was holding. To make the ride even worse for me the floor of the cable car rotated to give everyone a 360 view and they had a few windows open. I was not pleased when a sudden gust of wind hit me in the back as I rotated past one of the open windows. Needless to say, all photos taken during the cable car ride down the mountain are courtesy of Girl.


Cable car station

Our life support system

Heading down in the cable car

People rappeling down the cliff-face.....nut-jobs

Getting ready to pass another cable car taking people up the mountain

View of the City Center that Guy missed

Looking down....another view that Guy missed

Looking up to where we just came down from

See those little dots? Those are what we just rode down the mountain....nut-jobs