Table Mountain

The following blog post was written on the afternoon of the 7th of August while in Cape Town!

Today we went to the top of Table Mountain, which was the last thing on my list to do before leaving Cape Town. We were concerned that we might not get to go to the top, since it is so weather dependent and winter in Cape Town is known to be unpredictable. In fact, the cable cars just started running again on Monday after being closed for the winter.

Our incredible weather luck continued for another day! We were able to take the cable car up and down the mountain. The cable cars are huge, holding 65 people at once or a total of 900 people per hour. The floor of the car rotates while moving up and down to provide riders with different perspectives. The cables are also 1200m long, weighing 18 tons. However, the counterweight system allowing the cableway to remain balanced weigh 134 tons each. The view of the city from the top of Table Mountain is unbelievably beautiful! You can see Robben Island and the harbor as well. Table Mountain its self is thought to by some people to be one of the oldest mountains in the world, over 600 million years. It is at least 6 times older than the Himalayas and 5 times older than the Rockies. The giant granite and sandstone mass that became Table Mountain was formed under the ocean’s surface and then carved by glaciers. The mountain is often cloaked by white, drifty clouds referred to as the Tablecloth. There are many myths surrounding the Tablecloth, the most famous is that a pirate named Jan van Hunks met the devil on the mountain and in attempts to save his soul he challenged the devil to a pipe smoking contest-where they continue to smoke today. The Tablecloth is actually the result of a meteorological phenomenon that causes the clouds to tumble down the side of the mountain throughout the day.