Terrys in South Africa: Table Mountain

Wherever you go in Cape Town you are aware of the presence of Table Mountain. As well as being extremely beautiful, it serves as an excellent topographical marker, making the place a very easy city to navigate around.

The view from the top is breathtaking. On one side, the city centre extends to the port and the Atlantic Ocean, with Robben Island in the distance. Over the next the scene extends to the Twelve Apostles and Camps Bay area - to coin a South Africanism, the view from the top is 'divine'.

But go for a little wander and peek over the back side, and you'll see the Cape Flats - a huge area to the south-east of Cape Town where the majority of blacks and coloureds live in various townships.

A close up view of the Cape Flats is not so pretty. We drove past Mitchell Plains (above) on our way east, and the sprawling mass of corrugated iron sheets and ramshackle buildings absolutely astounded us. It went on as far as the eye could see, and we could only imagine the living conditions of the millions of people who live there without sewerage, electricity or running water.

But back to the mountain...

Given the cable car was out of commission for it's annual maintenance during our last trip to Cape Town, we were dead keen to get to the top and have a look around on this trip. Not being a big fan of heights, I wasn't terribly excited about the process of actually GETTING to the top of the mountain, but found that the whole experience was hardly worth getting in a tizz about. The car itself is deceptively big, and probably fits between 30 and 40 people in it.- hardly the intimate cable car experience I was anticipating! Still, the thing works, and is stupendously efficient at moving the hordes up and down the mountain.

Once up the top we had a good wander around, took a few happy snaps, managed a couple of awesome Geocaches, and then decided to spice things up a bit by abseiling down the side.