A night on the mountain

Spend a night on top of Table Mountain in this restored stone cottage and its adjacent outhouse. The night we were there was cold and wet, but the fire was cheerful and we were warm and cosy under our white linen duvets on the beds (those that hadn't been dripped on). A truly wonderful experience! Your luggage and firewood is taken up for you and, depending on the weather, you can hike up through Orange Kloof or take the easy way up the *concrete road. Prices are lower in the winter. I would love to find out more about the history of these buildings but there was nothing about them in the cottage and I cant find anything about them on the Internet. One book I have merely states that the "Overseer" looked after the waterworks related to the five dams up there.
*The concrete road is also known as the Bridle Path and a little booklet put out by the "Cape Peninsula Publicity Association" in 1913 has this to say about this route: "The Bridle Path from Constantia Nek has become dethroned as a ladies’ route owing to the much greater familiarity of the fair sex with other ways of descent. It is no doubt easy to feeble knees, and is certainly not lacking in ‘definition,’ while its scenic charms are indisputable."

Green Protea

If its Wednesday, it must be a hike. Today we walked up Nursery Ravine to the top of Table Mountain and back down Cecilia Ridge and on the way we encountered lots of flowering Green Proteas (Protea coronata). They flowerhead had been roughed up a bit by the Protea Beetles that pollinate these extraordinary plants.

Tranquility Cracks

My take on today's theme, tranquility, is to take you on a hike up Table Mountain - Cape Town far, far below, with the far-off noises of the city and the southeaster wind in your ears. We take a sudden turn off the main path onto a narrow, undefined path, past a gnarled, mossy yellowwood tree and into a narrow rocky corridor, which leads into several other passages and caves. Yellowwood trees grow all around, their crowns reaching for the sun high above. Suddenly all is quiet and still. These are the Tranquility Cracks.
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Fabulous filtration

The water that collects naturally on the mountains of the Cape is a reddish-brown colour due to the nature of the vegetation and rock, and although it is perfectly sweet and clean, people were uncomfortable with it, so in 1935 work started on a filtration plant on the slopes of Table Mountain at Kloof Nek. The water that came from the Hely-Hutchinson and Woodhead reservoirs on top of Table Mountain was filtered through the plant and emerged in the taps of homes in Cape Town as crystal clear water. The plant is housed in this beautiful redbrick building which was designed by Patrick Henry Thomas Shillington and Franklin Kaye Kendall for the Cape Town City Council. You can see it at the start of the walk along the Pipe Track above Camps Bay at Kloof Nek.

Table Bay

Today is an absolute stinker of a hot day! We started early and hiked up Devil's Peak - to get this view over the city of Cape Town on the fringes of Table Bay; Robben Island in the middle. Welcome drifts of cool air from that mist coming in from the north made the return bearable.

The thin edge of the wedge?

Chapmans Peak reaching out into the ocean encloses Hout Bay and forms part of the Natural World Heritage Site that is the Table Mountain National Park. Chapman's Peak Drive, which you can just see in the photo, is a toll road which is administered by Entilini, a rather shadowy company that has taken some liberties in the past with its concession. Yesterday Capetonians were outraged when news broke of a proposed R54 million office block to be built in the Table Mountain National Park to house a bunch of road-toll officials with large, large egos - an an eye on possible high rent tenants, who knows. And guess who finances most of it? Us, the tax-payers! It is absolutely outrageous! My first thoughts on reading the article by Melanie Gosling in the Cape Times was "Is it April Fool's Day?" The office block will impinge on the integrity of our national park and seriously undermine the integrity of SANParks.(SANParks, go and read your mission statement on your website to remind yourself what you are all about!) It will be the beginning of the end of the war against the attrition of our beleaguered natural areas and I really, really hope that it will never happen.
There will be a protest march on Sunday 22 January at 10 am, starting at both ends of Chapmans Peak Drive.

Desolate

Stormy weather today and an apt backdrop to the once bustling suburb of District 6 at the foot of Table Mountain, which is now a monument to the atrocities of the Nationalist government. Most of District 6 has been lying deserted since the brutally sad days of the seventies and eighties when an entire community was forcibly removed to clear the area for "whites only". But apparently there is going to be a lot of development here in the coming year as land claims are sorted out and things get going.

Table Mountain pillar box

On the top of Table Mountain, just outside the shop at the top of the Cableway, is this red pillar box which must have been made during the reign of Edward VII of England as it has "ER VII" on it, and below that "Handyside, Derby & London". Any letters posted here will be franked with the name Table Mountain. A quick google of the name Handyside brought up the identical pillarbox standing in Oakwood, Derby! The firm produced an astonishing number of iron works. Just look on this website.

Pot of silver?

Rainbow over Silvermine - a showery, blustery day today. Silvermine is a section of the Table Mountain National Park where once, many many years ago, the early Dutch settlers prospected for silver in vain. Now its a glorious nature area in the middle of Cape Town.

Our Mountain

After all the hype and Pop Idol-like fever, Table Mountain eventually made it into the "provisional new 7 wonders of nature" that some company dreamed up. I dont really agree with all this commercial branding hoo-hah, but I do agree that it is a wonder of nature! Here is a view looking at it from above Simon's Town - the back of the traditional view. You can see Devil's Peak on the right, and the table part of it just to the left. What makes it so special is not just its shape and size, but the fact that it harbours an amazing diversity of plants - more indigenous species than the whole of the British Isles. Plus some interesting insects and animals like the Velvet Worm - Peripatus.

Flying past

Flying past on the Nelson Mandela Boulevard this afternoon I could clearly pick out the subject of my post yesterday - the Moravian Chapel in District Six. It is the white building right in the centre of the photo. You can see all the open space that was left vacant, as Cape Town's builders and architects refused to build on sites that has once been part of the vibrant community that was District Six, and even today, I am not sure what will become of it. There are probably many land claims and much land restitution to be concluded still.

Sky dam

This is De Villiers Dam which was built high up on Table Mountain to provide water to the burgeoning suburbs below. Today there is an easy walk up to it from Constantia Nek.

Up, up and away

Great weather for a trip up Table Mountain in the Cable Car. This is the lower cable station and in the top right hand of the photo you can just see the cable car as it ascends to the top. The cable car first opened in 1929.

I'm searchin for a pot of gold

The weather really doesn't know whether to laugh or cry! On Sunday we went for a hike in the Kalk Bay mountains and saw this rainbow over Fish Hoek - reaching up into Sun Valley.
With apologies to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young for substituting pot for heart!

Top of Table Mountain

This little steam locomotive can be found in a museum on the top of Table Mountain. It was used for the construction of the dams up there, which were built to supply the growing city of Cape Town with water. This old photo in the museum shows the Woodhead Reservoir under construction with the Black Watch Scottish regiment pipers at the laying of the foundation stone of the dam in 1894.

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and for more tees, go to ABC Wednesday.

This morning's tweet

This little Orange-breasted Sunbird is endemic to the Cape - and is found in the fynbos wherever there are proteas and ericas. It lives on nectar, insects and spiders. The male (seen here on the slopes of Table Mountain above Chapman's Peak Drive) has this gorgeous orange breast, whereas the female is quite ordinary - with a browny-yellow breast and otherwise just a little brown job - albeit rather a noisy one.

Picture perfect

Cape Town's picturesque Waterfront in front of Table Mountain. Cape Town's prevailling moisture-laden summer wind, the Southeaster, pushes air up over Table Mountain, which cools and condenses, forming the famous Table Cloth. (We were having a delicious Italian pasta at San Marcos.)

PS. So proud of our very own Charl Schwartzel who won the US Masters golf tournament yesterday!

Messing about in boats

It's school holidays in Cape Town and a wonderful place to while away the warm autumn days is Silvermine Dam in Table Mountain National Park. Take a picnic and a boat, and a good book.

Kapok clouds

Kapok clouds that kiss the mountain tops. Looking over the Cape Peninsula this morning from the top Top of Table Mountain - back to Cape Point. Kapok is a Malay word that describes the fine cotton-wool that surrounds the seeds of certain species of cotton and wild rosemary, which is used to stuff cushions and mattresses. Today is the first real day of rain we have had this autumn. I sense the fynbos starting to wake up from its summer sleep. For more Ks see ABC Wednesday.

Out on a ledge

Today is a public holiday in South Africa: Human Rights Day - the anniversary of the massacre of innocent people at Sharpeville in 21 March 1960. We celebrated our freedom from the shackles of apartheid by hiking up Table Mountain with our son who is visiting us from the big bad city of Johannesburg. He is off to Brazil soon to do a hike for Save the Children and was looking for an excuse to break in a new pair of hiking shoes. Here he is at the top of Kasteelspoort - one of the best ways to get up Table Mountain. He looks like he is hitchhiking to a far galaxy! Far below is a rather foggy Camps Bay.