Cape Town 2013 - Part 3

So the main reason we visited Cape Town was actually to go the the body world expo, but somewhere we decided to hike up table and to do so without dying we gathered at the base of the mountain at 6:00 am, a Time at which being awake should be a capital offense. Needless to say it turned out to be quite a smart idea as you could see water boil in an instant when the sunlight hit it.

 

The took platte klip gorge route one of the shorter steeper routes which we did in just over 2 hours, mostly because we had to stop and rest for certain party members, if we didn't have to you could easily do it in 1h 30m. Needless to say the route if very simple and friendly with a mostly clean trail going up it also has bard wired rails at certain places. It's mostly like climbing very steep stairs that go on forever.

I must admit the surroundings are very beautiful and just makes me wanna pull out my climbing shoes and go climbing. Table Mountain also features tons a trad routes for all you trad climbers and we caught up with some climbing guys as we reached the top. The top of the mountain is not flat as one would suspect but rather rugged.

There are restaurants and toilets at the top, however it will happen often that the facilities will run out of water since the facilities water is brought up by the cable cars. To get down you can either hike down or take a cable carts, however if you do choose the cable cart you have to buy a 1-way ticket at the gift shop for R180, a 2-way ticket is R400



It's also worth noting that apparently the Mountain Club of South-Africa has a cabin at the top of the mountain. Afterwards I caught up with my friend who just started working in Cape Town well technically she starts work the next day but we thought we'd show her around a bit, since tourist visit the places more than the people that stay there.

We met up headed to body world, sadly no pictures are permitted, we then went to the waterfront to get some food. Where a street magician entertained us with his magic while this was happening his accomplice a flying rat - most commonly known as a seagull - swooped down and one by one took one of our fries. I must admit seeing those magic tricks up close is so much different, I kept trying not be fooled, but damn he was good. 

I definitely want to make plans to head back and hike the the other routes to table mountain and into kirstenbosch the botanical gardens of Cape Town.