Saturday we had been planning to hike back up to the reservoir up on Table Mountain. Last time we hiked it we paid to get into Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, but this time we wanted to find a way to get on the trail without having to pay to get in to the gardens. We convinced a mini bus (a mini van turned into a taxi that crams people in for a cheap ride) to take us out to kirstenbosch (which is a little bit of a drive out and not on their normal route) where we thought we saw a trail head before. The driver didn’t really know where we were going so we got pretty lost and had to stop at a gas station so he could get directions. After talking to the guy at the gas station and explaining to him what we were trying to do, he directed us out to Constantia Nek. This was a pretty far drive out so we threw in a good tip for the mini bus driver when we got there.
Looking at the trail map it looked like we had a long way to go and that it would take us quite a bit longer to get to the reservoir compared to if we had left from kirstenbosch. The trail from kirstenbosch is about an hour-2 hour hike straight up the mountain but luckily it is pretty well shaded and it’s an interesting forested hike to do. This one was called the Jeep trail and it was paved the whole way, which was pretty weird. Instead of stairs and ladders it was more gradual but it was in direct sunlight the whole time and extremely hot during the middle of the day when we were hiking.
It was intense for a little bit but when we finally got to the top of the ridge it was a nice walk for about an hour to get to the 3rd reservoir (the one we had been to at the top of the trail from kirstenbosch). Once we got there we unloaded our picnic, put the cider, beer and wine into the water to chill, laid out soaking up the sun and played around in the water. It was just about the perfect day.
We thought we had read that the gardens closed at 6 pm so around 5 we started scrambling to get everything together and quickly hike down towards kirstenbosch to hopefully get out in time before all the taxis left. As we got down towards the bottom of the trail we started running until we got into the gardens and noticed so many people still there relaxing and walking around. Not acting like the park was closing. We asked someone if the park closed at 6 and they informed us that no, they weren’t sure what time it closed, in other words we had run for nothing.
Despite our sunburnt bodies we all couldn’t stop talking about what a good day it had been and hopefully we’ll be able to get up there again sometime soon!
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