Table Mountain & Abseiling!!

Tuesday December 7th. Yesterday, I heard that the weather isn't always cooperative for going up Table Mountain, so when I woke up and saw it was a beautiful day, I decided to forego the city tour and do a hike.

I walked from my hostel, for an hour and half, mostly uphill to the base of the mountain (it's the flat one you can see in the aerial photos I took when flying in). Then I began the climb. It began getting steep very quickly and there were lots of steps, like Machu Picchu. After a half hour or so, I wound up on a ledge of the sandstone mountain and the trail traversed the length of the whole mountain, underneath the cable car to the far side. Then the trail climbed again, ever steeper up the Platteklip Gorge. I finally arrived on the summit after three plus hours of walking.

I spent a couple of hours just enjoying the view, a couple of delicious fruit popsicles and some snacks I brought up. Then I noticed people climbing the mountain with helmets. I went and took a closer look and discovered they were doing what we call repelling, and they call abseiling. I watched and decided I was going to try it.

It was amazing, scary but amazing. It's a 120m drop off a cliff. For the first part you are within reach of the rock face, land on another ledge, step back off again and then you are totally suspended and free of the rock! The view was unbelievable.

When I got to the bottom, I decided to watch the next guy come down and take some photos. Down he came (see the photo) and landed in a heap at my feet! He was laughing all the way down. His name is Hisham, from Jordan, and we hit it off like a house on fire. Together we hiked along the very narrow path with steep drop offs back to the summit to collect our bags, another half hour of climbing. Then we sat and enjoyed a couple of beer and a lot of good laughs. Hisham is on the right in the photo with me and the two abseiling instructors.

He had taken the cable car up, but when I told him I was walking back down, he decided to join me. So, away we went. We walked and talked all the way down the mountain and back to the hotel area, another three hour walk. I don't think Hisham was prepared for how far the walk was. He kept calling me the crazy Canadian, because I had walked up too.

We missed the road to our hotel area, but wound up in the touristy harbour front area. So, we found a pub had a beer and dinner. Then we walked to our hotels and said our goodbyes. Another great day friend. I left the hostel at 8 am and returned at 10:30pm. Not a bad walk.