Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Surrounded by mountains, cloaked in mist



Last night I went to the top of Table Mountain to see the moon rise and the sun set. This ordinary sentence, written on an ordinary Tuesday, doesn't start to describe what I saw. 
The world from up there was an action movie. Clouds raced over the mountains and  sunlight burst through in golden circles, only to disappear in the next moment.



The bay and the Cape flats lay under a blanket of puffy silver mist that moved, shrunk and stretched into different shapes minute by minute.  A ship pulled out of the harbour, the setting sun reflecting on its white chimney, before disappearing into a dark, white world. 
Platteklip Gorge makes a dent in Table Mountain's shadow on Devils Peak.
From the top of Table Mountain, the Helderberg and Stellenbosch mountains stood like cardboard cut-outs in the late light, as close as the next suburb. 
At last the sun dropped over the horizon, as if burning a hole into the billowing mist and the sky burst into orange fire. 
Then the moon popped out behind the clouds, high in the sky, and the last cable car down was called.

Not an ordinary day at all.



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