Visiting Table Mountain is a bit like a game of cat and mouse! The mountain attracts cloud cover, which tends to lie flat on the top, hence the nickname “the tablecloth”. The trick is to find the right moment when the tablecloth has been removed!
We had been in Cape Town for two days and had twice aborted our proposed trip up the mountain because of the cloud. On the third day we had visited Robben Island and on our return trip on the boat, we could see that the top of the mountain was clear. We therefore wasted no time in making our way to the cable car.
We had followed the advice of our Saga rep and took the bus to get to the base station. For those with a car, it looked as if parking might be a nightmare as there only seemed to be spaces on the roadside up towards the mountain. There are specific shuttle buses from the centre of Cape Town, or alternatively, as we did, you can take one of the hop-on,hop-off buses that stop there. The advantage of this is that you can buy your cable car ticket at the same time as your bus ticket, so avoiding waiting in what can be long queue. Buying tickets in advance is the best advice, however you travel there. You could walk up, of course, if you felt energetic!
The cable car itself is excellent as it rotates, allowing all the passengers 360 degree views. There’s no need to push to get a good place, as many of our fellow travellers were doing! The views on the way up and from the top are truly amazing, and well worth the trip. Cloud occasionally came over but cleared just as quickly. There are walks along the top of the mountain with plenty of flora and fauna, and you can follow the path down, which is a little less exhausting than walking up! You might even see the dassies, an animal native to South Africa that looks like an overgrown guinea pig but is in fact related to an elephant! Walking down may even be a better bet than waiting for the cable car to descend, as again, there can be long queues at busy times.
We were delighted to have finally been able to get to the top of this iconic mountain, and felt it rounded off our visit to Cape Town and South Africa perfectly.
