Table Mountain

Sunday our goal was to make it up to the top of Table Mountain. After a morning of researching trail options we decided to take off from Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. We convinced the taxi driver to let us squeeze 6 of us in his little car (despite there being a fine if the police catch you with too many people in the car) and headed towards the gardens. It costs a small fee to get in to the park and we didn’t have time to walk around it but from the little I saw it was absolutely gorgeous and I am definitely going to go back so that I can walk around the paths through the different gardens.

We hit the trail—the skeleton gorge hike—at about 11:00. It was a really steep hike almost right off. A lot of stairs, some ladders, and a lot of boulder climbing and navigating. Luckily, the majority of it was shaded otherwise I’m sure I would have died. The scenery was amazing though. It was forested and then you could walk out towards these clearings where there was an incredible view. Close to 2 hours later we got to this reservoir/lake. I can’t even express how big of a relief it was! It was surrounded by a sandy white beach, fairly isolated and just what we needed to cool down from the first half of our intense hike.

Drenched in sweat we found a shaded cave to eat our lunches in then cooled off in the lake. The water was cold, but after 2 hours of stair climbing it felt soooo nice. By this point I had run out of water, so when the guys we met there said we had about another 2 hours to go until the restaurant at the top of Table Mountain (where the tram goes) I wasn’t sure I would make it. I was already hot, sweaty and super thirsty and we were only half way. Great. The guys said we had about an hour of climbing to do still then it was about an hour of easy walking along the top until we got to the other side where the restaurant was. Great.

The first hour of the second part of the hike was brutal. No shade. Sooooo hot. Soooooo thirsty. Sooooo wanted to die. We kept thinking we were at the top, then there would be another intense climb to another peak. Finally we made it to the top though and we could see the restaurant and knew that our thirst could be cured in a feasible amount of time. The view from the top was indescribable. You could see EVERYTHING! The mountain I hiked the first day, Lion’s Head looked like a little mound of dirt.

As we got closer to the lodge type thing there were people in dresses and nice sandals who obviously hadn’t made the journey like we had. I think I looked like I had been hiking for a week. Covered in dirt and sweat. Yumm yumm.

Once inside we all bought about 3 super expensive drinks. Water, slushy (I poured mine before it was ready though so mine was just red syrup. Delicious red syrup), and a beer. 3 or 4 hours of hiking was worth it. After sitting for a while and talking myself out of buying another red syrup, we decided to fill up our water bottles in the bathroom sinks and venture down the mountain.

There’s a path that goes straight up (or down depending on which way you’re goin) a gorge. I think it’s the most popular path because it’s the quickest (takes only around 2 hours) but it goes straight up and, while it’s cool, you don’t get the awesome forest hike that we got. Or the reservoir pit stop. We went down that way though and my stupidity and lack of skill in climbing down rocks and boulders was put in to full practice. So dumb. I was waaaaayy behind everyone else as I wimped out all the way down twisting my ankle whenever I could and smashing it on a rock as I manoeuvred down at a stupidly slow pace. I eventually made it though. To my surprise even more than anyone else’s really.

About 6 or 7 hours after we had begun, we caught a taxi back to the house. My legs started to feel sore about an hour later and are still sore today. I also was dehydrated for 2 days after. Haha so while climbing table mountain sounds like a badass adventure as you can see I did it in the most pathetic way. It was tough though and I survived (which is actually something considering that same day an elderly man fell off the mountain and died apparently). I will definitely do it again before I leave though (at least once more) only I will have way more water this time and be mentally prepared for stairs galore and overall epic-ness of the hike!