In the photo of Rob as a small figure top right by a low wall facing right you see a plaque with the four cardinal compass points on it. I have taken the photo to show our route from Cape Town northwards to the left of Robben Island when we eventually leave. The black bird is a Red Winged Starling; as they fly their wings flash red/brown and they are common and beautiful. The three tall cylindrical buildings, locally called Pepper Mustard and Salt, were highly controversial when they were built because although their foundations are below the legal building line the apartment floors are all above it. The residents don’t object of course!
So, What’s it Like up there on top of Table Mountain?
After all we don’t often come across a mountain with such a flat top do we and I’ve often wondered what grows up there, on level ground with plenty of moisture from its almost daily table cloth? So, we were going to find out.
Eight years short of its centenary this cable car trip has allowed millions of folks to make the same journey. There are just two cars, speeding up and down on the same make of German cables as Zoonie’s new rigging, and providing an all-round view as the floor turns, disconcertingly at first, especially if one hasn’t been listening to the commentary and warning! They can take an alarming 65 people at once but we were about 7 strong and feeling like VIPs with the place almost to ourselves because of the lack of overseas visitors.
The substantial building that receives the car at the top looks like a pimple from a distance but we were confident of its integrity, after all it is sitting on a foundation half a billion years old.
Summer is on the decline here and spring a distant memory so the few flowers we saw are reminders of the masses that must look fabulous in full bloom but are now dried or turned into fruit and seed heads. There are many paths for the energetic around the mountain, starting with gentle but exposed paths from the bottom that grind on up through rocky gorges to the summit and two routes to follow on the top; we took the longer Klipspringer Trail in the light breeze and warm air.
Interspersed beneath the foliage and low bushes are the smoothed rocks containing a myriad of water worn pools that must look spectacular after rain with the blue-sky glistening on their watery surfaces. An abundance of life hides away from the drying sun. We spotted just colourful butterflies and some beady eyed lizards. There is a healthy lack of warning signs and fencing on the top; it’s down to one’s common sense and instinct for survival to stay safe. Rob made me edgy as he stepped close to a ravine side for a peep down one of the tracks, but a woman posing for a photo on top of a rock barely wider than her feet, with her husband and son watching and a 1000 metre drop behind her that was just plain annoying.
We came upon two Indian men for a nice chat. They live in Jo’burg and were soon despairing of the mess the government is making in many ways and the rampant corruption. “They could keep corruption at say 5 – 10% but this is excessive and destructive for everybody.” President Cyril Ramaphosa is adamant he will rid the government of corruption even while he personally is under investigation for the same crime.
“Why couldn’t they make the handover gradual so we could show them how to do it?” Is a common refrain. They were OK with handing over in principle but despaired for everyone suffering under their incompetence. Of apartheid the gentleman I was speaking to said they as well as the blacks were on the wrong side of the white bosses, but despite this, after a short visit to India, they still couldn’t wait to get back to SA.
He told me that Jo’burg, being a working place where people struggle to earn a living, is not nearly as relaxed and friendly as Cape Town. I asked him if I was right in sensing a comfortable diversity of humanity, co-existing to an extent a person could enjoy good mental health, life style and relationships and he agreed. The petty and sometimes nasty crime that goes on here is no different to anywhere else.
We enjoyed a light lunch with our own view over the mountain range through the open doors and only a handful of other diners sitting at well-spaced seating areas, and descended once again in the car thinking how we had chosen the right day.
Reclamation to Shipwreck to Well Found Yacht
The Khoi and San, hunter gatherer and nomadic farming people, sparsely populated this area before Europeans arrived and the plains teemed with mega fauna, big and small animals of a great species diversity. Bartholomew Diaz sailed by in 1488 and ten years later Vasco de Gama found the first all sea route from Europe to India around South Africa thus opening up the commercial route for the spice trade avoiding the problematic overland journey from Constantinople (Istanbul) to Peking (Beijing).
Portuguese Bartholomew Diaz stands on his plinth reminding us of this and, appropriately, overlooking the business district that is built on land reclaimed from the sea by the Dutch; who are, as some of us know from our early years schooling, very good at reclaiming land. Remember the little boy who plugged a hole in the dyke with his finger to prevent a trickle becoming a flood until help arrived.
Our shiny red bus then turned away from the water and Duncan Dock with its empty cruise liner terminal and headed into the town centre along Heerengracht, right along Strand to the right of which was once the Quayside and then left along a short section of the very old and characterful Long Street, along which we walked yesterday on a town trek, more about that later.
Buitengracht, New Church and Kloof Nek Road all merged in that order into the road heading towards the Mountain. A left at the roundabout and we were on Table Mountain Road, and glad we weren’t walking as it left behind it the tree line and climbed through a switchback to our destination; the Cable Car Lower Station and from there to our return you already know our story.
Four hours later and our many questions answered, we were back on the bus for the spectacular ride through Camps Bay and on to Clifton with its four, guaranteed ‘windless beaches’. Real estate agents sell properties on the basis the new owners and their guests can go to the beach without any fear of getting sand in their eyes. No new builds are allowed to block the view from the road which was very nice for us.
At one of the bays further around this sales assertion is on thin ice as you can see from the trees in front of the apartments, where the wind hits the walls and windows of the buildings and bounces back onto the trees in an attempt to push them across the road.
More seriously, this is a very exposed coast in a southern storm as happened during the Great Storm of 1865 when countless vessels, including the R.M.S. Athens foundered with loss of all life. Her man-made engine block you can see in the photo is a durable reminder of the fragility of man and a nice little target for swimmers and snorkellers. Even on the benign day we were there the swell hitting the shore and breakwaters was impressive.
We left the bus at Green Point beside the lighthouse with its grazing geese and walked the seaside promenade around Mouille Point to enjoy the views of where the Atlantic Ocean meets the shore in spectacular style. Soon we were back at the V & A Waterfront and looking forward to relaxing back on board well-sheltered Zoonie.
Dedicated Penguins and The Old Cape Point Lighthouse
Setting off with our friend Brian on a tour of the Cape Peninsula our first stop was on Signal Hill near the Lion’s Head, where keen hang gliders were waiting for the opportunity to take a running jump; a term which had other connotations when I was a teenager with an older brother. What was stopping them on this day was the cotton wool carpet of fog that lay over the ground below and far out to sea, so that all we could see of the anchored ships was the hundreds of containers resting on their pure white quilt.
The coast-hugging road around the Cape affords the most incredible, mind stopping views as the road clings tenaciously to the rocks or swans smoothly around sandy bays and through seasonally choked villages which for us, because of Covid restrictions, were not busy.
We looked down on Fish Hoek Bay to the pretty little fishing harbour reminiscent of a Cornish counterpart and got out of the car at Simon’s Town to see the marina in which Marjolein and Henk were aboard Jori. A sad reminder of home came in the form of the plaque paying tribute to the 607 men aboard SS Mendi who lost their lives in a collision in fog off the Isle of Wight, where I lived for nine years and visited frequently as a child. I remember reading about how a young Winston Churchill sat overlooking the same waters and watched in horror as a sail training ship foundered on rocks and sank with heavy loss of young trainees. The sea is not discerning, just like Covid.
The rocky Boulders Beach has been cleverly arranged with stout wooden walkways and fencing to keep people as separate from the local colony of African Jackass Penguins as the endangered penguins wish. Back in 1982 there were just two breeding pairs, now there are over 2000 because of restrictions placed on the fishing of pelagic fish, pilchards and anchovies in False Bay where the beach is situated. Quite what affect the destructive visiting Asian trawlers are having in this part of the peninsula I am not sure.
We walked along the boardwalk to Foxy Beach and right up to the wooden fence there were penguins nestling in hollows under the shady indigenous bush, nursing their eggs. On the upper part of the beach, above the high water mark you can see the dedicated penguins on or near the hollows containing their eggs, panting in the heat of the day; whereas their partners were down on the cooler sand near the water’s edge taking dips to cool off, as were lots of human families in the neighbouring bays.
We sped on to Cape Point and took the funicular up to the old black and white banded lighthouse that was built in 1859, commissioned the following year and replaced in 1919. There are three prominent headlands in this area rising to over 200 metres at Cape Point, where we were. In the penultimate photo you can see The Cape of Good Hope is the furthest south west headland, then next to it and just before Dias Beach is Cape Maclear. So it is understandable that being the highest land, Cape Point is where the tourist activities are including the walks out to both lighthouses, the funicular railway, shop and Two Oceans Restaurant where we had lunch as you will see later; while the famous Cape of Good Hope is the most significant geographically for the mariner as he clears it to turn on his/her onward journey just as we did.
(A seal is just thumping Zoonie’s hull as I type this, splashing and writhing in the water around us).
An Elevated view of the Stunning Cape Peninsula Coast
The Second of the three Peninsula Blogs
Conflict between the burgeoning Ottoman Empire and Western Europe for control of the lucrative trading routes within Europe to the Orient meant that an alternative maritime route was key to the future prosperity of the west.
That was back in the late fifteenth century and Bart Dias and Vasco de Gama we instrumental in opening up the route that led to the Global Economy we have today.
From the old lighthouse we walked downhill towards the present-day white domed roof lighthouse with its 10 million candle power light we saw on that grey misty morning all of two weeks ago, (second from the left in the picture of the five lighthouses) and looked offshore toward what some think of as the border between the Indian and Atlantic Ocean. The cold northward turning Benguelan current (which should help us) meets the warm south flowing Agulhas Current (our old friend) in this region, hence the perceived meeting place of the two oceans; but for us the Agulhas left us near its namesake Cape so that is where we entered our home ocean.
For over half a millennium these waters have seen the passage of vessels that transformed from the bulbous and chunky sailing craft to the supremely streamlined Tea Clippers like the Cutty Sark to the modern day, over half a million-ton and point 7 of a mile long cargo ships and of course little sailing yachts like ours.
It seemed entirely appropriate, as we looked down on Cape Point Lighthouse, the most powerful one in South Africa, that it was built so close to the rocks below, as a warning to keep clear. The old light on top of the hill would frequently have been lost in the clouds and was set a good mile back from the dangerous rocks below.
The old visitors’ cottages are now an atmosphere laboratory, one of the 30 working for the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) to keep an eye on air quality. Judging by the lichen all over the bush you see in the photo the air quality here looks pretty good.
The next photo is another one of the two capes in the distance; The Cape of Good Hope pointing its toe furthest into the ocean westwards and then its sister Cape Maclear. The weather could not have been better for us, but it is not hard to imagine this area in a storm.
Our morning’s labours were rewarded with a delicious lunch overlooking the ocean but I must admit the glass of still water and bottle of beer were the best part!
High Peaks, Long Beaches, Rolling Surf and The Deep Bays of the Atlantic coast
Slangkop Lighthouse is the tallest in South Africa, being at ground level it had to raise its lights somehow and in so doing it has a range of only 4 kms less than Cape Point. The long beach is so called and is very popular for galloping horses. To one end of it the rocky land rises dramatically to Chapman’s Peak so named after John Chapman, the pilot of an English ship, who was sent ashore from his becalmed ship in Hout Bay in 1607 to find provisions. The account doesn’t say whether he was successful.
The precipitous road around the peak with its superb views on a good day was hacked out of the soft sandstone at an elevation up to which there is a granite base. Work started in 1915 and the toll road was opened in 1922. It has been closed on a couple of occasions, once for a number of years after a German couple were killed by rockfall. Numerous engineering measures were put in place including the overhang you see and tough net fencing to catch falling rocks.
As we rounded the peak towards Hout Bay ourselves there was a sudden roar behind us and as you might imagine, with the dramatic nature of the drive, my nerves were already a little edgy and I thought something had happened to Brian’s car, but it was the little black monster you see pulled up behind us, hired out for the day, whose driver wanted everyone to know what a great time he was having.
We had had a great time too, rounded off with an evening with Brian’s family, Graziella his wife and Joujou his mother-in-law, both from Mauritius and their two Jack Russells; we sat in their garden all evening in the warmth from the air and wood burning braai (BBQ) and chatted over a lengthy and delicious home-cooked supper.