We’ve wanted to visit South Africa for years and years, and this year events conspired to make it possible… Several activities were on the agenda – classic rock climbing on and around Cape Town’s iconic Table Mountain, seeing the ultra famous Jackass (African) Penguins at Boulder’s Beach, and ultimately our real bucket list activity – a trip to the Kruger National Park for some safari action!
However, we kicked off in Cape Town. What a great place, and the climbing on Table Mountain is brilliant…
By the way, the guidebook Cape Peninsula Select is OK in that it got us close to and vaguely up our routes. However, bearing in mind that I know a thing or two about guidebook publishing having published many, it is an awful book. The diagram labelling is incomplete and poor, routes that are referenced are missing (e.g. Magnetic Wall), it has some duff advice, simple approaches are laced with unnecessary warnings and complex approaches are not described, etc. Typical errors found in guidebooks written by locals who are too close to their knowledge and unable to see it from a newcomers point of view. 🙁 You’ll have to buy and use it if you are to climb hereabouts, but I wish they could have done a better job…
African Penguins at Boulder’s Beach & Cape Point
We used the scenic Chapman’s Peak Drive (toll road) to travel from Cape Town to Simon’s Town. Simon’s Town is a pretty place, we had a nice lunch stop here before going on to Boulder’s Beach and the amazing African Penguin colony. After enjoying these wonderful animals for many hours – you could get right up to and mingle with them – we went on to see Cape Point, the most south westerly point of the African continent.
Table Mountain – Lower Buttresses
Back to the climbing. We’d decided we’d alternate one day sight-seeing and one day climbing…
Today was hot, 38°C at the Table Mountain cable car lower station. It was also very windy and the top of Table Mountain was cloaked in thick clouds – the Table Cloth. So we opted to climb on one of the lower cliffs of Table Mountain, Arrow Buttress. It also offered an easier route, Fraser’s Arrow, to provide some easy sport in the strength draining heat. (Cape Town in late summer in the middle of a heat-wave and drought is possibly not the best time for prime climbing conditions.)
Stellenbosch
Our next sight-seeing day was a trip to Stellenbosch. A pretty wine growing area with a mind blowing array of eateries and cafes. The highlight for us was probably the Botanical Gardens.
Table Mountain – Fountain Ledge
On our final full day in Cape Town we’d made plans to climb on the iconic Table Mountain again, but this time on the best bit, the final 150m or so of vertical rocks before the summit plateau… Having previously walked up to Arrow Buttress in the full sunshine we knew that was super hot work. So today we took the guidebook advice and caught the cable car to the summit and walked back round and down to Fountain Ledge using the India Venster route. Catching the cable car up Table Mountain is in itself a world-class tourist attraction! The whole cable car rotates to give all the occupants a 360° view of the ascent.
