Good day everyone! Zak here from Cape Town, South Africa. Let me tell you the tale of the fat man, who went up Table Mountain and bit off more than he could chew!
Yes well, you might have guessed it, that fat man is me! I have not gone for a hike in over a year, but what is a man to do with a 10-year-old, a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old, and her boyfriend? Take them to the mall? That sounds expensive!
So I took them as far away from a mall as I possibly could, while still staying inside the city... yes, I took them to Table Mountain!
All jokes aside, we really did want to go for a hike and I had done the Contour trail two or three times before. This time however, I got the vote from the kids to go even further and listened to some other hikers telling us 35-40mins away we would be on the Saddle... sure, I thought I would give it a go... it did NOT take 40mins!
So let me show you through my camera roll. It is rather pretty, even though the one side of the mountain had cloud cover... so the view was obscured!
Nevertheless, it gave a wonderful sense of accomplishment... and then lots of cramps... I thought I might get stuck on the mountain at one point!
Right... Camera Roll:
Rhodes Memorial Pictures
Because the parking lot is at this memorial, statue and structure.... we might as well eh?
Let the Hiking Begin!
Going up this way makes you feel like dying for the first half an hour or so, after that it is really nice!
Onwards! Says Meren!
The Octagon
Above, we reached the Octagon. It has no real name on a map or anything but the picknic spot is built in the shape of an Octagon and is usually the place where we eat lunch and then turn back... but my son Meren (@merenludick) had other ideas...
Up Newlands Ravine
I must say, it was every bit as challanging as that first part where you feel like dying... only longer... then up a zig zag trail until finally you have some wonderfl sights!
My camera roll ends on top of the mountain where my phone died...
I did all that... AND then all the way back again and had to fight through leg cramps to get back down off the mountain! So out of shape!
The kids (well, the boys) are keen on doing this every weekend!
We shall see...
Until next time.
Cheers!
@zakludick
Nice on Zak, looks like a great weekend experience and lots of elevation gain, I like recording our hikes with a free gps app on my phone or watch. Is there any parkrun run events near you I have hear there very popular in South Africa?
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I had our trip recording on my Alltrails app but my phone died at the summit of the Saddle.
Yes! Parkruns are a thing here. @lex-zaiya and her SO usually do them. 😁
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That's some seriously beautiful scenery ! It must be weird living in the shadow of a mountain, the nearest thing we've got to that around here is Box Hill, about 30 miles away, and that only technically counts as a mountain because a Victorian eccentric put a memorial on it just tall enough to get it over the thousand feet it needs.
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Indeed! It is very mountainy here and like certain places, we orientate ourselves depending on where we are regarding the mountain.
There's actually a way straight up Devils Peak from Rhodes Memorial up something called Mowbray Ridge... It's spectacular and exposed but does involve scrambling. Growing up with a rock-climbing father means I've been up the mountains in some interesting ways!
Indeed! I will need to explore more routes! But... when my legs feel better. Fat man had many cramps.
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All the photos are awesome! But I don't think I can climb and take pictures on such high cliffs and mountains. The children are so brave, it's good! 😁😍
Haha, we were not on any steep places. We did have to go up step steps, but nothing dangerous.
Just dangerous to the unfit 😅😅🥵