Our first day in Cape Town Jason had a field lab for his Public Health class, so I decided to climb Table Mountain with a group of women. Jason will later post about his day, but here's my first day in Cape Town.
The trail we took to the top is called Platteklip Gorge, and it's three kilometers of steps straight up the mountain and through a gorge to the top. It's not easy, but it's definitely doable.
From the very beginning, there are beautiful views of Cape Town and the harbor. At this point we were excited and taking pictures, and the guide was just laughing because she knew how much more amazing it would be at the top.
Table Mountain is very very old. There are all sorts of crazy rock formations, some straight up and down cliffs, and lots of beautiful vegetation.
After we had hiked for just a bit the clouds started to roll in. At times, we couldn't see the top of the mountain OR town at all. All we could see was right in front of us. The wind also picked up and we got blown about a bit.
We finally reached the top and headed towards the view points. It was still pretty cloudy but had started to clear.
Luckily over by the viewpoints was totally clear. We were able to look out over Lions Head mountain, the bay on both sides, and all of Cape Town. Look closely in the picture below and you'll see a dassie hanging out on the rock. Dassies are small mammals whose closest relative is the elephant!!
His close up:
We took lots of pictures of the beautiful views, and the clouds just made everything look even cooler.
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| Just to the right of the T-shaped docks you can see our ship, the M/V Explorere! |
All in all it was a wonderful day, although even today (4 days later) my quads are pretty sore! Going back down was definitely the most painful part.
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