Off to Cape Town

After an absolutely divine breakfast in Swellendam (I hope I’m putting on weight) we were off to Cape Town. The weekend weather forecast has Friday as the best weather so we were keen to get to Cape Town in good time and visit the top of Table Mountain that day.

On arrival at our accommodation, Parker Cottage, our host was very helpful ordering us a taxi, cable car tickets and getting our luggage into our room so we could leave almost immediately.

The weather held with blue skies and cool wind. Having had a few bad days down here the top was packed with tourists (of which I have to reluctantly realize we are among). But we walked the loop at the top before leaping off on our next adventure.

And leaping off aptly describes what we did as we had booked to abseil off the top of the mountain. They claim to be the highest commercial abseil in the world and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is true. The descent was 112m all in all starting from over 1000m above sea level. Prepping and practise took some time. We were in no hurry. Leaning back over the edge was not a comfortable experience. However, waving to the camera for the commercial pics loosened us up and soon we were on our descent.

The first third was down a rocky face where, if we wanted to, we could kick away from the rocks as James Bond might. One of us declined to do this. After this first third we found ourselves in thin air having to descend the last 70m or so straight down to the helper below. We were both pleased to put our feet down on terra firma but pleased we’d done this. There’s not a lot of thrills left but this one was new. My first regret was allowing my tee-shirt to ride up and ending up with a couple of burns on my side (see pics).

110m from the top of Table Mountain is nowhere convenient at all so we had to scramble along the vague rocky path to meet a series of paths which converged on the top. We had already ascended 60m (in total) by the time we had the choice to complete the final 50m or descend by path. We decided on the latter and that sort of leads us to our second regret. The path we took down was basically uneven, steep, rocky steps. Half way down our legs were killing us. By the bottom I’d lost my tee-shirt and had had enough. We thumbed a lift to where we could catch a taxi back to the ‘cottage’.

There we soaked the sweat off in the most energetic shower we’ve probably ever seen. Nice. For the evening meal we went to a nearby restaurant where we had a mixed experience. The steaks were delicious but the service poor, including Helen getting two dirty glasses. Not good.

On Saturday we woke to screaming thighs. It was horrible. So we chose to do a tour of the peninsular by car. We visited a market in Haut Bay, the penguins over by Boulder Beach and even exercised our weary limbs at Cape Point.

We drove the west coastal road close to sunset getting some terrific views and ended up eating fresh seafood at The Codfather restaurant. As we’re nearing the end of our multi-year sojourn, I splashed out on crayfish. I think back to the two we were given in Kelefesia in exchange for razors and crap rum (Frank, remember?). The were worth several $100 in a western restaurant. Different economies.

Another day has passed but I’m behind on my updates so I’ll leave you for now with the pics up until this point.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpBXv0cVjV4[/youtube]

Tomorrow we fly back to the UK. It feels like the end of something but I must get focussed on it being the beginning of something new and exciting.