We took a visitor from Johannesburg up Table Mountain to see the sunset on Monday 26th April. It was spectacular!
Table Mountain is a big mountain and I have hiked up it from many different directions. I am always amazed at the beautiful views of the Cape Peninsula. The traditional route up for most tourists, is from the Cape Town City side up the front, via the cable car. One can queue in popular periods for a long time and so I recommend paying R10 more each and buying your ticket online (http://tablemountain.net/) which permits you to skip the queue. Parking is always a problem so you may well have a ten minute walk once you have found parking.
The cable car takes 65 passengers at a time. The floor of the car does a full rotation during the ten minute ascent so one gets a 360° view on the way up. If you stand on the mountain side when you enter you will be on the mountain side again as the car approaches the cable car station at the top. I find that approach so interesting.
Paths and viewpoints have been established to maximize the views. There are three signposted walks. There is a fifteen-minute Dassie Walk, a thirty-minute Agama Walk and a longer Klipspringer Walk. Avoid venturing further on the mountain unless you are properly equipped and have a good map. Whenever you go up take something to keep you warm because it is always cooler up there than in town and often quite windy.
As always with high level views they mean more to people who recognize what they are seeing. But even as a newcomer to Cape Town one can appreciate the views over the City and Docks to Robben Island, along the length of the mountain towards Kommetjie, Cape Point and Simonstown and over Camps Bay. A recent addition to the view is the new, attractive Cape Town Stadium.
On Monday evening there was some cloud cover but not on the sea horizon. So we saw the sun set over the sea and then the sun rays lit up the clouds to make a real spectacle. Sunsets in Africa are often wonderful but this was very special. We lingered until the call went up for the last cable car down.
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