I Love Table Mountain Blog

The jewel in the ankle bracelet

2012-01-27T10:32:00.006+02:00

Deer Park is the jewel in Table Mountain's ankle bracelet. It's low on the slopes, and from here you can walk up to Tafelberg Road and onto the higher slopes.

In the late afternoon the setting sun paints these lower slopes red-golden. It's a place where you can open your arms wide and have a full-on nature experience, just 500m above the restaurants in Deerpark Avenue in Vredehoek.

I've walked here a million times.
I know Deer Park's moods and Deer Park knows my moods.

I love Deer Park.

Chappies espresso

2011-12-23T12:08:00.001+02:00

Sunset on Chappies. Far below, Chapmans Peak Drive is Sunset Boulevard, full of cars, picnic baskets and champagne glasses. Here, on the contour path high up on the mountain, the fragrance of an espresso slowly percolating wafts passed us. I'm with my sister Marikie and her son Marko, a young adventurer with a special talent for making espressos.
Sunset, fresh coffee, happy Christmas.
A mountain for champagne, for coffee and streams running with fresh rain.

Marko the espresso king with his mom Marikie.

Golden light, golden rock.

High on Chapmans Peak it's just us and the watsonias.

Small miracles

2011-12-14T13:53:00.000+02:00

Agapanthus with diamond and papyrus.

Small miracles on a rainy afternoon at Kirstenbosch.

Aspotted eagle owl sits in pouring rain in a flower bed right next to the path.

My friend Fran shows methe secret room inside the heart of the giant ficus, a hollow big enough to sitin. And then she hugs the tree.

It’s cold, it’s wet, but it’s a small, perfect afternoon.

Spotted eagle owl blurred in the rain.

Pincushion's indigenous xmas wrapping.

Fran in the secret room of the ficus.

Walking in moonlight

2011-12-08T21:59:00.001+02:00

Tonight the moon rolled over the mountain like a batteredold tin plate with dented edges. Two days before full moon.

Watsonias swayed in the howling southeaster and danced across my camera lens.

Just me and my moon shadow on the mountain. No-one else.

One mountain, many lives

2011-12-06T22:18:00.001+02:00

Her name is Shahnaaz and she’s a healer. We met thisafternoon over a bright pink cloth on a saint’s grave on Table Mountain.

I was walking past the mosque on Signal Hill and Shahnaazwas about to enter the mosque with her family. I asked her about the pinkcloth, which had not been on the saint’s grave a few days before. The gravesare called kramats and there areabout 6 or 8 of them around the mosque.

She explained to me that making an offering to the saintburied there could include placing a new cloth, called a chadar, on the grave. “There are many layers of cloth on top of thegrave, placed there over a long time by many people.”

Then Shahnaaz told me that she was there to make a specialoffering to the saint under the pink cloth. He had been a healer and so wasshe, offering reiki and reflexology and all kinds of other alternativetreatments.

She had fasted for two days and now, as the sun set, wasabout to break her fast with some dates and nuts.

Shahnaaz, the healer about to break her fast.

I said goodbye to Shahnaaz and then noticed a group ofcyclists who had met in front of another kramat.One of them leant his bicycle against the grave. “Um, this is a sacredspot,” I said without thinking. “Oh it’s just a dead person,” the man said. Onemountain, many lives.

Rumours of rain. When a cloud hangs over Lion's Head like a lacy Catholic mantilla veil, it will rain tomorrow. Really.

White in the forest

2011-10-20T10:04:00.000+02:00

Forests are not only green. There are thousands of shades of white. Bark white, lichen white, fresh petal white, dried petal white, white of seed, rushing water white. Light reflecting on waterfall white. White of clouds. Silver tree's cracked white trunk.

Fool moon

2011-10-13T16:52:00.002+02:00

Lion's Head adrift in fog.

You won't believe it, but it happened again. I sped out of the house early this morning to go and see the full moon set. But when I got to Kloofnek the whole full moon extravaganza was hidden behind a thick blanket of mist. This is exactly what happened a month ago when I went looking for the full moon. (See previous blog)

However, Table Mountain being Table Mountain, it had a surprise parcel of gifts hidden behind its back, as usual.

Confetti Alley

Don't for a moment think wet air dampens the spirits of the birds and the beetles. Slangolie Ravine, a deep gorge above Camps Bay, was like an echo chamber of birdsong. Red-winged starlings, Cape sugarbirds and orangebreasted sunbirds screeched, whistled and sang full throttle. Chunky black beetles whirred along like jolly little helicopters. Even the sound of the waves are amplified in the gorge and it's easy to believe that no world exists outside these walls of rock. The steps going up to Slangolie are covered in buchu sprinkled with white flowers and if you crush the leaves the buchu scent sticks to your fingers. And all the time the mist moved; then closer to the mountain, then back to the ocean - like a restless sleeper wrestling with his blankets.

I had to try and capture the beauty of this misty spring morning with my iPhone, because Speedy had left her camera's memory card behind when she sped out of the house. The pics aren't bad for a cellphone, I'm sure you'll agree.

So I've been fooled by the moon again. But just wait, another full moon will come around in a month's time and then - surely - I will see it set.

The pipe track in the mist.

Missing the moon

2011-09-14T07:39:00.000+02:00

We had an early morning date with the full moon. It was meant to set just before 7, so Jan and I took our tea and rusks and went to find a spot on the spine of Signal Hill. You could say we had booked the best seat in the house. In the west, the full gold moon would sink into the ocean, while in the east the red new sun would rise.

But it was not to be. Signal Hill was covered in thick mist. Instead of the full moon extravaganza, we had the morning of crystals.

The first watsonia of summer and the blue babianas flowering along the path were splashed in droplets. The mosque was in misty soft focus and the silk on the kramats of Islam's holy men sank into a deeper, wet colour.

No full moon, but diamonds everywhere.

Kramat at the mosque on Signal Hill.

Forester's child

2011-09-09T10:28:00.000+02:00

My father was a forester and my grandfather was a forester. I was thinking about them yesterday while I was walking in Newslands Forest after the rain.

I love everything about the forest. The way the green swallows you, the leafy softness, the smell of pine and wet earth. All that makes me feel small, as if I’m walking beside my father and my grandfather, both long gone.

Mossy bark blurs in soft light.

Yesterday afternoon the forest hovered just there, between the rain and a clearing in the sky. The pine trees had wet bark like dark elephant skin and a single red leaf twirled in a secret current of air, like a ruby pendant in the green.

In the forest I love walking, just walking, without plan or path. As a path appears my feet follow it, or not. I like getting lost this way, twisting and turning deeper into the forest, taking faint little paths disappearing into knee-high ferns. Sometimes I let myself go into darkness, where the path disappears into a tunnel between low-hanging branches.

And then, a clearing. The ruins of the woodcutter’s cottage in Newslands Forest has clover growing out of old stone walls and mossy rocks scattered around spaces that were once rooms. The oaks have crisp and fresh new leaves that have dropped like green flyers after the rain and wind, giving notice of spring.

On my way back wood smoke drifts on the cool evening air. It’s a fragrance made from the warmth of a room, a cooked supper and soft light. Home of a forester’s child.

Swaying strelitzias at dusk.

Mad with love

2011-08-30T22:03:00.006+02:00

Gifkool, snotroos, kelkiewyn.

Piempiempie, bobbejaantjie, ink-tulp.

Kinkelbossie, skilpadblom, pienk lewertjies.

Read it aloud, no, sing it aloud.

Now try this: spiloxene serrata, moraea tripetala, nemesia versicolor.

I’ll stop right there. The Latin just doesn’t do it.

The poem at the top of this blog, that love song, that ode, is a list of Afrikaans names for spring flowers on the index page of the West Coast wildflower guide. You could just recite all the names and send it to Radio Sonder Grense as a poetry reading.

Your blogger hard at work, jumping for joy.

On the last Sunday of every August we have a date with the piempiempies, surings, froetangs and tamaraks. It’s a secret route on a non-disclosed section of the West Coast, a spring paradise. Secret, because a small part of it crosses private land and in spite of my heart-rendered letter to the German land-owner, he refused permission for us to cross his property. So we quietly cross his land and tell no-one.

For the last ten years it has never rained on the last Sunday of August and this Sunday, true to form, dawned sunny and peachy. We walked with the ocean at our right shoulder, facing the flowers as they turn towards the sun. We threaded in and out from the beach to the veld to sandy jeep tracks that hug the coast. Then we found a green meadow dotted with tiny flowers, where we ate our early lunch and drank tea. Shortly after, we stopped again in a field of daisies that faded like candy from pink to yellow and drank more tea. We passed tortoises chewing on surings and picked up tortoise shells and porcupine quills and a beautiful zen stone.

We found a glossy black mole snake in the dunes that had just swallowed a mole and looked immobile and vulnerable and very full. We ended our walk along a long wide beach where the sea turned silver in the late afternoon sun.

My friend Heidi sent me this quote: A flower is a leaf mad with love. Our West Coast meander is a walk mad with flowers. It is our happy walk.

In homage to solitary walks

2011-08-11T21:30:00.001+02:00

Walking alone is like sitting between the cellos in a symphony orchestra. It’s like cooking with the stew in the pot, being inside the cloud that rains.

I love walking alone. There is a secret ravine on Table Mountain that harbours me on short afternoon walks and has a Verraux eagle that ignores me. A few days ago I was alone in a valley on top of the mountain in the middle of a city of 3.7 million people. Deep in this valley there was no sign of the city at all.

It felt as if I could hear every single thing. The darting song of every sunbird, the moist croaking of frogs, the sound of water flowing deep under a rock, the wind shaking the seed pods on the reed-like restios.

When I’m alone I take longer, see more. Stand at the edge of a pool reflecting the blue sky and watch the frogs go plop in the water, then stare at me with bulging eyes just above the surface, their legs hanging down like swimming paraplegics.

In the mouth of a cave I could feel the cool air on my cheek coming from deep inside it. Across the valley a waterfall made the sound of a distant car crunching on gravel.

When I’m walking alone I feel like the first person and like the last person.

I love walking alone.

King of the mountain

2011-07-17T21:26:00.006+02:00

I remember once many years ago we were on holiday in Cape Town. We went up Table Mountain in the cable car and my mom pointed at the figures far below us and said: “Look children, mountain hikers!”

Today I was one of those mountain hikers that waved back up at the cable car. And I wouldn’t have swopped places for anything in the world. India Venster is a king of a hike. It is pure royalty. It is filled with splendour and has had its share of tradegy. It is one of the oldest and most popular routes up the mountain. It has claimed lives, absorbed buckets of sweat and been trodden by thousands of boots.

On this day, another peach in this glorious midwinter hot spell that has lasted almost three weeks, we added our footprints to the thousands before us. Spring has confusingly sprung and it’s only July. The bobbejaantjies sat in royal blue clumps, the red buds of the China flowers have popped open to a surprising pink and white and the yellow daisy bushes shout ‘springtime!’

India Venster is tough. For the first two thirds it’s a hard, straight-up climb, mostly just below the cable car. The difficult part is where there are some big step-ups between some big boulders and this is where most of the trouble has been. Thanks to the kindness (and hard work) of some mountain lovers, India Venster now has some sturdy bolted on handholds and chains that have made this tricky negotiation much easier.

Doug and Keri with baby Rachel.

Now the hard work was past us and the blue sky soared above where a black eagle was being chased by crows. Then it pulled away from the crows like a Ferrari leaving a Volkswagen at the kerb. What chance does a crow have against an eagle with a two-metre wingspan and such a stately name as Verreaux.

Spot Gilad, dropping out of the sky on a rope.

As we rounded the buttress to the back of the mountain, a friend dropped out of the sky. Literally. It was the well known Gilad, abseiling down a rockface as if it was a normal Sunday morning occurrence, which, for him, it probably was.

When we smelt the bacon we knew we were near the top cable car station. We took the cable car down and passed some hikers on their way up India Venster. This time I knew exactly what if felt like to be the one down there on the rock.

My new love is shimmering and flirty

2011-07-06T21:56:00.002+02:00

I have fallen in love. Again. This time my passion goes by the name of homoglossum priori. Yes, yes, I know, not very compelling. Neither is its popular name, rooi Afrikaner. That makes me think of Eugene Terreblanche’s nek.

I spotted my new love when Jan and I walked up to the Saddle earlier this week (see previous blog). It was icy and windy and yet here were these red-velvet pointy flowers swaying in the wind, smiling at the cold. Six-pointed scarlet stars. The other day someone said there aren’t many flowers on the mountain in winter. Well, wherever they were walking, it wasn’t in this gold-green fynbos with its red beauties. Homoglossum priori is the flirty younger sister of the red disa – the one I fell in love with four months ago. My new love, h. priori, wears a flimsy red dress and pointy shoes and dances in the wind.

So, today, armed with a new 100mm macro lens for my Canon 40D, I went back to the Saddle again. Today there were blue skies and full-on sunshine, but it was still icy up there in the teeth of a very cheeky southeaster. You could feel the Antarctic on its breath.

H. priori is not shy. She performed for the camera. Smiling, weaving, shimmering her velvety petals. Oh yes, I am in love. And here she is, in full glory.

And here, just because Table Mountain is one of the oldest mountains in the world, is a rock. A very old one. In the last light.

Grey turns to gold on a Blue Monday

2011-07-04T22:07:00.002+02:00

It happened again this afternoon. When I looked out the window I saw a grey afternoon, clouds sweeping over the mountain and a wind that shook the pine tree next door. Not exactly inviting weather for an amble on the mountain.

Homoglossum priori - fancy name for a six-pointed star that shines on the mountain in winter.

But wait. Jan arrived home early on this, a miserable Blue Monday. He dragged me out the house by the scruff of my waterproof jacket and announced that we were walking up to the Saddle. If you look up at Devils Peak, you’ll see the saddle at its bottom right, before it slopes upwards to the top of Table Mountain.

And then the grey afternoon was transformed by alchemy as the late sun broke through underneath the clouds and washed the mountain with pure gold. It’s one of those wonderful mysteries of Table Mountain. Don’t believe it when it looks miserable from your window. Just be brave enough to tie up your boots and get outside and let that clear light touch you and breathe the fresh cold air that carries a hint of buchu on its breath.

Below Devils Peak the slopes were star studded with six-pointed red flowers. Homoglossum priori swayed in the chilly southeaster, catching the sun in their petals, turning this flower from the Iridaceae family into a red-gold creation. Popularly named Rooi Afrikaner they flowered next to the path, in the cracks of rocks and next to the stream up on the Saddle.

Which brings me to one of my favourite spots in the whole world: a patch of soft grass sheltered by a huge rock in the middle of the Saddle. Here you can lie back on the softest grass bed (check for ticks afterwards), listen to the stream tinkle and catch an orange-breasted sunbird hopping onto a bush in front of you. We ate a sweet orange and rinsed our hands in the icy stream. No Blue Monday stands a chance against this. It’s called Heaven.

The Saddle is a world in itself. A freezing wind galloped ahead of a bank of clouds that poured down the mountain, lost us in mist and five minutes later cleared to let the sunlight back, dancing over the disco-green leaves of watsonias, pelargoniums and leucadendrons. As a last special bonus, the sky lit up around Lion’s Head in a candy-pink sunset that faded into thick creamy clouds that soon became grey again. Which just goes to show: don’t let the grey clouds bully you.

Home sweet home

2011-06-17T12:28:00.001+02:00

The most beautiful view in the world: Table Mountain from the window of a Boeing. After five days in Gauteng, home sweet home.

Free at the top

2011-06-12T20:19:00.003+02:00

The colours on top of the mountain are blue, bright blue and deep blue. I don’t know about you, but it’s been ages since I’ve been on the actual flat tabletop bit; the western table, if you’re looking at a map. The part where the cablecar ends and a lot of tourists walk around.

The Table Mountain Cableway’s new cable card is a great offer. For R490 per person you can go up and down the cableway as many times a year as you like, but not more than one return trip a day.

So this morning, when Jan and I felt like an easy post-flu stroll but still needed to be on the mountain and smell the fynbos, we had the brainwave to buy the cable card and put it to work immediately. We sailed up and the best thing of all was the sense of wonder on every face - including our own - even though we had done this many times before.

At the top it took us just a few minutes to shake off the crowds and walk towards Maclear’s Beacon (named after an astronomer who also has a crater on the moon named after him).

This path is close to the blue sky. Clumps of reed-like restios stand ankle deep in pools of shallow winter water reflecting all that blue. A winter’s day like this is a perfect Cape Town day. Not a breath of wind, mellow sunshine and, up here, the croaks of tiny frogs like hairline cracks in the still air.

The route that loops back from the beacon takes you along the edge of the mountain and sudden, original views of the city, seen from the sharp side of the mountain. It’s like floating to the roof of your room and looking down at a familiar scene. Below us the cliff face dropped hundreds of dizzying metres. Although it’s not really exposed, it’s exhilarating to feel as if you’re walking along on the edge of the mountain, with the ocean a kilometre below you.

Wisps of cool night air hang over the Atlantic Ocean, below the Twelve Apostles.

Ahead of us Table Mountain was a massive chunk of reassuring sandstone, with Lion’s Head looking very small from up here. And then we were back where we started. An hour and a half’s easy stroll, but a great mountain high. No sweat. At all. Just flash those cable cards.

Under the bush it is dark

2011-05-27T19:17:00.000+02:00

Friday afternoon on the pipe track above Camps Bay. Twelve Apostles reflected in puddles filled with Wednesday’s rain. Sun smudged by a bank of clouds; two cold fronts on the way. River of light swirls on the horizon as the sun moves to another continent, another dawn, another day, towards summer somewhere far away. Under a bush a Cape Francolin scrabbles and lies down for the night. Under the bush it is dark.

Do you know where we are?

2011-05-25T20:26:00.000+02:00

“Do you know where we are?” In front of us stood four teenagers with bulky backpacks. The girl who asked the question had a much creased and well used map of Silvermine in her hands. I don’t think it was hers.

It turned out they were Scouts, let loose for the weekend in Silvermine on a mission to find their own way to the Amphitheatre. They hadn’t done badly. They were in fact close to the Amphitheatre, even if they were heading in the wrong direction. And judging by those backpacks they were, as Scouts should be, well prepared. There were two boys and two girls in the pack and just in case you didn’t know, the days of Girl and Boy Scouts are over. It’s just Scouts now.

I was so happy to see these four Scouts challenging my preconception that most teenagers spent their weekends in half-dark rooms killing everything in sight on their playstations, that I said: “We’ve just decided we’re also going to the Amphitheatre.”

We had our own little scouts-in-training behind us. Eager little walkers, each one of them. Erin-Joy and twins Gabrielle and Chiara. There is something wonderful about showing a little girl a fresh pink flower and telling her it’s an oxalis purpurea, only to hear it repeated when she spots one a little further on: “Oxalis purpurea!”

Of course, if you have children (I don’t) you would know that refreshments are key to keeping children interested in spending a morning on the mountain. So we found a protected overhang above the Amphitheatre and spread out along the rocks like a happy extended Khoi-San family, munching and chattering.

Our Scout troop marched on and we watched them cross the valley with a touch of pride.

By now Silvermine was spotted with sunshine, clouds racing shadows across the mountain.

“Mommy, I want to spend the whole day on the mountain,” a little voice piped up. Have you ever heard more beautiful words from an eight-year old.

Gifts from Cecilia

2011-05-16T11:12:00.003+02:00

Winter is beautiful.Tightly packed in our waterproofs, we walked through Cecilia Forest up to the waterfall. It was a mega-rich walk: mist swirling through the trees, orange and yellow leaves twirling and dropping softly to the ground, Cecilia stream fresh and filled with new rainwater.Today's blog is filled with pictures, not words.

Early winter in lace.

Cecilia Waterfall with the mist swirling in the trees above.

As it is.


Rock with elaborate ancient ridge necklace	.

This glittering jewel lay next to the path, neatly framed by a curved sprig of dry grass. So perfect.

Damp glampers find a blue sky

2011-05-02T11:04:00.005+02:00

Our 'glampsite' at Kol Kol Mountain Lodge.

Last week we went ‘glamping’ in the mountains above Bot River, which is the new word for glamorous camping. That means a semi-permanent tent with a nice big bed and a white duvet, an outdoor hot tub and – most importantly of all – a three-bar gas heater.

Because it rained and rained. And then rained some more. Followed by snow on the highest peaks. The ‘glam’ in ‘glamping’ was disappearing as fast as a sunray in a downpour and we were rapidly becoming far more damp than glam. It gets worse. We found a pack of cards and were reduced to playing rummy. My husband Jan drew the line at snap, even though I suggested strip snap. Someone has to stay rational.

But it was all worth it, because on the sixth day the sun came out and danced shamelessly over the fynbos as if it had never been away. We strapped on our boots, packed in a flask of tea, built a king-size sandwich that would last a day and got out.

My fellow rummy player and explorer.

We had the whole world to ourselves. Soon we were over the borders of Kol Kol, the farm where we were glamping and heading further and further up. We couldn’t get close enough to that spotless blue sky. A few days before we had forced ourselves to set out for a waterproofed walk in the rain and had got to the top of the same ridge in a galeforce wind with an icy horizontal rain cutting through us. Now it was a different place: friendly, warm and stretching out around us into far dusty-blue horizons.

Rocky outcrops sat white in the fynbos, towering up like deserted old mansions. Not a smooth curve in sight. Nothing could ever stay smooth in a wild place like this with its raging winds, freezing rain and scorching sun. But not today. This day, the sixth day, was a peach. We walked and walked, eventually hitting a sandy jeep track that pulled us towards a hidden gorge. We knew the way home, but had no idea of the way forward. We let our feet find the way in this free place beyond people and guide books and it was wonderful.

Winter's first oxalis purpurea.

Long strands of restios waved in the wind and new tufts of bright-green, red and pink fynbos stuck their heads up in the recently burnt veld.

Then suddenly, in the middle of this valley, three figures emerged in the distance. Like two aboriginal songlines our path and theirs finally met in the middle. One man had a sturdy walking stick and a dog like Lassie and called out, “morning!” His name was Simon and he was the owner of this universe. Theoretically we were trespassing, but fortunately Simon seemed to enjoy the fact that we were enjoying it so much too. “Follow that path over there for the best views,” he pointed out. “It doesn’t seem right that someone should own a place like this,” said Jan, as we walked off.

Common Pagoda (mimetes cuculatus)

We followed Simon’s instructions and suddenly there it all was. Below us was the entire Houwhoek valley, from the Houwhoek Hotel on the left to the huge Steenbras dam wall on the right. Green squares of apple orchards and round blue dams filled the long valley between two mountain ranges and the N2 cut through it with its shiny steady stream of cars.

We found a spot out of the wind to have lunch, and I turned until I could sit and look at the big mountains above us. I far preferred the big untamed world up here to the ordered pretty one far below.

Even so, it was nice to eventually walk down one last hill and spot ‘our valley’ down below, cradled by mountains with ridges like long arms. Before us the ochre farmland and stubby hills of the Overberg bleached into the furthest range of deep blue mountains and what would surely be the next wild universe.


Things I found lying on the ground: a shard of a teapot, a porcelain duck's head, three everlastings, a piece of an anthill, three burnt leucadendron cones and a small piece of wood.

The lily that has a corner of my mind

2011-03-07T12:41:00.004+02:00

Yesterday we went to see a forest about a lily.
It was one of those glassy days where the sky and the ocean melted into each other and Silvermine reserve floated somewhere in between. When it comes to Silvermine, you get east-siders and west-siders. I’m an east-sider. That’s the part of Silvermine on your left as your drive on the Ou Kaapse road towards Noordhoek. The east-side is wilder, bigger and it has Mr Pakkies. This friendly man is always at the gate to the parking area to collect your R5, comment on the weather and send you on your way with a smile. I’ve come to think of Mr Pakkies as my Silvermine guardian angel, so I was upset when a new man at the gate told me that Mr Pakkies is very ill. I hope he gets well soon, the east-side is not the same without him.
There are a dozen ways to get to Spes Bona forest, where we had our date with a lily. We walked up the hill to Nellie’s Pool and rested in the shade while all the frogs at the water’s edge went plop into the water. We took the path down towards Kalk Bay and it was like walking over the edge of the world. The mountain ended in the ocean below, where a shroud of mist and thin cloud smudged the horizon into infinity.
We turned off the path leading to Boyes’ Drive and climbed up to the forest. And entered a fantasy world. Huge green boulders glowed green with old moss. Milkwood and yellowwood trees with gnarled trunks grew out of a thick carpet of dead leaves. A wooden boardwalk, spiralling into the shade, was tinted moss green as the forest claimed it as its own.

On a huge grandfather of a boulder we took out our tea flask and let the birdsong, the dappled sunlight and the shade wash over us. And then. There it was. A spark of red in the dark forest. A bright red waxy head had pushed up through the forest floor to announce with a big smile: “Here I am, the beauty of the forest!”

She has many names: paintbrush lily, blood flower, March flower. Her true name is Haemanthus coccineus. Here’s how I remember it. ‘Haima’ is Greek for blood and ‘anthos’ for flower and just in case you missed the obvious, ‘coccineus’ is Latin for red. If I was a botanist, I would have given her a Latin name that meant scarlet miracle.

Take any day of the year and give a thought to the paintbrush lily. There she is, in a forest in a crevice in the Kalk Bay Mountain. As the winter rains fall, her big fleshy leaves grow. Come summer, those green leaves die. Through all those hot, dry months you won’t even see her, but you can think of her, nurturing a big fleshy bulb below the ground. One day, towards the end of summer, a big red flowerhead will burst out of that bulb and push into the light. And on it, dancing in the forest breeze, will be a hundred tiny scarlet flowers. Then the moths and the bees and the sunbirds will fly through the green and brown forest and land on her red billboard. Think of her, when, at the end of summer, she at last drops her beautiful red head on the ground. But still it is not over.
Her seeds fall and then the gentle drops of the first winter rain caress her and it starts all over again. I keep a corner of my mind for the forest lily there in her mountain crevice as I rush here and I rush there. And when I do think of her, the day slows down and I’ve touched the ground again.

The sweet pleasure of the familiar

2011-02-20T22:08:00.002+02:00

Lion’s Head is like your favourite restaurant where you can always order the same pizza. The one you don't have to think about but is always there. Dependable and tasty, but not quite as sensational as the brand-new restaurants that open every week somewhere in Cape Town.

Just as there’s always a more dramatic ravine or a hidden gorge to discover in an unknown corner of the mountain. After more than two decades of walking all over Table Mountain, we still discover new walks all the time.

Happy Birthday David

But every now and then, the dice falls on a Lion’s Head walk and then the familiar holds its own sweet pleasures.

Even more special is a tradition. Walking up Lion’s Head has become a tradition every year on our friend David’s birthday. He calls up the troops, makes sure everyone is there on time (leaves behind those with hangovers) and leads the march. Today the troops included a babe magnet called Coco. She is a tiny Yorkie dolled up in pink ribbons and you wouldn't believe the reactions to what is after all just a little dog, even she is very cute. As far as we went, Coco - gambolling like a little lamb ahead of us - was met by non-stop gasps of ooh and ah and sweeeet...

I always forget just how challenging this little ‘koppie’ in our backyard is, maybe because I live in her shadow, see her every day and forget that she is also a demanding little mountain. That’s one of the reasons why a jol up Lion’s Head should always start as early as possible. And 7.30 on a midsummer’s morning, when the sun has already been up for an hour, is just not early enough. So just before the chains, over half an hour into our hot hike, when a man on his way down stepped aside to let us pass with the words ‘no sweat’, I had to point out the basic inaccuracy of those words. It was sweaty, very sweaty.

The grooves that have been carved into the hand-grips have made the climb up the chains ten times easier. Before that, we always rubbed sand into our sweaty hands to stop our hands from slipping, but now going up and down the chains is, well, no sweat.

Babe magnet Coco on top of Lion's Head.

My favourite bit of the walk up Lion’s Head are the big flat rocks on the final ridge before the top. The rocks put perfect little handholds into your hands and make natural steps for your feet so you can scramble up easily. On one side the Twelve Apostles march into the distance, clouds puff over the edge of Table Mountain and below is just sea, endless sea. This is where you become part of the blue of sky and sea surrounding you. By now my calves were burning and David, recovering from bronchitis, was not his normal chirpy self.

But we got there, at last. When you look out over the city spreading in all directions, there is only one expression that comes to mind. No, I can’t say it, it’s such a cliché. Ok, ok, here goes. At the Top of the World!

Chorus line of a long summer ballad

2011-01-31T16:34:00.002+02:00

The weather gods gave us a cool day. A soft misty morning is just what you need when you’re going to walk from Hout Bay up Myburgh’s Ravine to the top of Table Mountain and then all the way over the mountain back to the city. Add to that a marching master who said it could be done in six hours and any small mercy is welcome.

The last weekend of January is Red Disa Weekend. While we had been eating Christmas duck and gallivanting on holiday, the disa show had been in pre-production. All over Table Mountain’s cool, mossy corners their tightly rolled red buds had been quietly pushing out into the filtered light of ravines and forests and rocky overhangs. Now here we were, at the end of January, arriving for the show.

As we climbed up Myburgh’s Ravine the yellowwood forest, lichen covered rocks and walls of ferns surrounded us with greenness. And then. We came around a corner and there was the Red Disa show, mid-performance, in full swing. Red velvet petals unfurled in full glory, scattered in the greenness. Not just any red, but a deep scarlet satin-red that glowed in the green light of the ravine. The orchids danced on their long thin stalks like delicate dancers. Here was the chorus line of summer.

At the top of the ravine the light, even that of a misty day, was suddenly bright and glaring. Ripe yellow summer grass waved in the wind and clouds tumbled onto the plateau. It was like going from a rain forest to the grass plains of the Serengeti in a few steps.

But there was more red to be seen. That same exact shade of deep red dotted the landscape. It was the crassula and it had more than the colour of its flowers in common with the red disa. They are both deeply involved with the same butterfly. In this love triangle, the butterfly is called Mountain Pride and she is a beauty. She has a thing for a disa and a crassula. She pollinates both. When she lands on the flowers to drink the sweet nectar from deep inside the flower, the pollen sticks to her sweet little feet and off she goes. Long live the disa and the crassula, thanks to her.

Off we went too. We had a six-hour deadline to meet. Do not think for one second that the top of Table Mountain is flat. When this chunk of earth pushed up from the depths zillions of years ago, it did so in huge shoves. So here we were now, walking over the hills and valleys on top of the mountain. It was like turning the pages in a kiddies’ pop-up book.

Suddenly the huge vertical 100m-high rock wall of Oudekraal Ravine appeared ahead of us. Then Muizenberg and False Bay popped up. Corridor, Slangolie Buttress, Woody Ravine. Who needs to write poetry when these are the names of the bits of mountain in your own backyard.

By the time we headed down Kasteelpoort, the weather gods had moved on to another assignment. Now the heat was upon us. We trudged along the pipetrack towards Kloofnek, hot and dry. Plus we got to the end in just over six hours, thanks to the herding skills of the marching master. And thanks to the chorus line of Red Disas that still played in my head.

In the footsteps of the French fortkeeper

2011-01-24T22:42:00.001+02:00

High above one of the most scenic drives in the world is a secret path, made by the wind and the rain and the long-ago footsteps of forgotten people.

Chapman’s Peak Drive’s hidden but most beautiful twin threads in and out of cool, shady ravines, hugging the mountain over cliffs and through fields of everlastings and watsonias.

Whenever I walk up here on the contour path, I often think of my imaginary Frenchman. He would have been the fortkeeper of the Eastern Fort, where we start the walk just after Chapman’s Peak drive leaves Hout Bay. He was probably there alone, with only the smoke of a far-away fire on the other side of the Hout Bay beach for company. I fondly call him Monsieur Chap (pronounced shhap, you know, like the French). I imagine he was a member of the French regiment who built the fort in 1792, but stayed behind to look after it. Naturally because he loved the mountain so much.

One of Monsieur Chap’s most important jobs would have been to walk up the mountain to go and fetch water from the stream that always runs down Blackburn Ravine. This would not be a chore, but an event much looked forward to, I’m sure. Next to the stream he would sit, like us, drinking some tea in the shade as the water splashed the small ferns and big flat stone next to the path.

This Sunday I again imagined Monsieur Chap as the southeaster howled around us. He would have weaved his way through the proteas and I’m sure he would also have stopped to look at a sugarbird flapping with its long tail above a yellow pincushion and would have said out loud: Il est magnifique!

Then, back at the fort, he would take out his quill and his ink pot and write to his beloved Madeleine, who probably lived alone in a farmhouse in the rural district of Gers: “Dear Madeleine, I wish you could see this place, it is the most beautiful in all the world. The wind chases foam like small white horses all over the bay in front of me. Behind me the mountain pulls the earth up into the sky to fill it completely. Oh Madeleine, if only I could send you a painting.” This was, of course, in the days before Facebook, when Monsieur Chap could simply have uploaded a pic on his cellphone. Ah well.

More than two centuries later, we walked in his footsteps and the world immediately around us had not changed much at all. The southeaster still created a green wave of fynbos that danced to the wind. The sugarbird still flapped his tail above the pincushions and the mountain…well, it still fills the sky completely.

This Sunday we had an important mission. We had to introduce someone new to this beautiful place. Someone who had never seen it before and didn’t even know it existed. Okay, she is only three months old and this was Freya’s first time on Chapman’s Peak, heroically carried all the way in her kangaroo pouch by her mother Martine. Freya fell asleep as soon as we started walking and opened her eyes at Monsieur Chap’s stream, as if to agree, magnifique! then promptly fell asleep again.

When it was lunchtime under the summer-dry waterfall halfway to the peak of Chapman’s Peak, Freya’s dad Heine showed her what the mountain looks like up-close and she clearly took it all in.

From Chapman's Peak's secret path you can see a million miles out to sea and the Sentinel looks as if it may slide into the water while holding its pointy head up high.It's one of my favourite walks and maybe one day it will be one of Freya's.

The Feast of Crassula

2011-01-17T15:44:00.008+02:00

For a long time I thought Crassula was just the name of a street in the suburb of Devils Peak. But no, it is not. Crassula is a red thing of beauty that flowers in bright blotches on the driest slopes of Table Mountain in the most arid month of the year: January.

As usual, the Afrikaans name says it much better. Klipblom. Stone flower, because that’s where it grows. On the tiniest scrap of soil in the crevice of a rock it shoots up into a thick fleshy stem with a crown of a dozen tiny scarlet blooms winking with their white eyes in the wind.

And now is the time of the Feast of Crassula. On Sunday, our first hike of the year, we chose a route with an appropriate name for getting back in the saddle. It’s called, well, the Saddle. The Saddle is the neck below Devil’s Peak that connects it to the front face of Table Mountain. It’s easy, less than three hours and a gentle way to the top if you walk along the contour path and scramble up over Oppelskop Ridge.

Long ago someone had the job of manning an outpost on this ridge. The roof is long gone and the wind and rain have nibbled away at the edges of the walls, but the view remains majestically unnibbled. To the left the wall of Table Mountain. Lion’s Head grabs a chunk of view over there. Cape Town Stadium looks like a huge oval UFO that landed in Green Point. Robben Island sits in its frill of white breakers a distance out to sea.

The small view is another matter altogether. You can only experience the Feast of Crassula if your feet are actually on a mountain path. Then you start spotting the red jewels. One just next to the path, another three stems shooting out of a rock above you, two more over there, another clump of crassula on the edge of a small ravine.

At the top of the Saddle is a huge all-weather rock that can shelter you from the southeaster if you sit in front of it and from lashing winter rain if you sit behind it. Sunday morning was so perfect that for once we sat next to it, on boulders along the stream that runs through the Saddle and has cut a deep gorge from there on its way down to the ocean. A tranquil little stream can do that if you let it run for thousands of years.

We drank our tea and we ate our rusks while the tranquil stream tinkled. Behind our big rock stood an agapanthus with rolled up petals of sky-blue promise and a patch of pink ericas spread like a dusty plumped up duvet along the stream.

What a mountain to come home to after a holiday. What a feast to enjoy after the festive season.

Sunday morning falling down

2010-10-17T16:36:00.008+02:00

Today I fell down Table Mountain.

It all started so well. I had a lovely to-do list for the day: fetch my bokkie at the airport late this afternoon; a birthday celebration of a long-lost friend at noon and a long walk on the mountain before then. With a song in my heart and a flask of coffee in my daypack, I was at the bottom of Kasteelpoort in Camps Bay at 7.30.
Yes, it’s a trudge to the top. But because I started early I had shade all the way. After all that rain last week you could still hear songs of water threaded all over the mountainside, rushing down in secret little streams under grass, glistening over rocks and gushing into small pools.
On the famous flat rock almost at the top of Kasteelpoort I stopped for coffee. I had forgotten my cup at home, but not to be defeated, I poured it into the margarine tub I had packed my rusks into. It doesn’t matter how you get your caffeine in when you’re climbing a mountain.
Kasteelpoort is a majestic name for a majestic place. When you reach the top, the buttress rises like a huge sandstone castle to your right, with another buttress on the left and you walk through this portal to the kingdom that is the top of the mountain. I thought of Anatoli Boukreev’s words: “Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambitions to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.”
At the entrance to the Valley of the Red Gods I discovered the cathedral’s inner sanctum. Under a small dome of rock, fringed by green ferns, was a tiny mountain pool. A frog sat at the edge and went plop. A sandy beach, as long as my leg, curved around it. At the far end the water tinkled away through brown reeds and echoed against the rock dome. A dry white flower petal drifted on the water. In this small world all was perfect.

From the western lip of the Red Gods’ valley I dropped down into Porcupine Ravine and was filled with the joy of the day. Now the heat was rising from the ground and the fat, round smell of fynbos hung in the warm air. All the way down Diagonal Route I scattered confetti bushes, brushing my hands in their buchu sented leaves as the tiny white petals dropped like snowdrops on the ground.
It’s a treacherous way down with lots of wet and loose rocks and I picked my way down with extreme care. At last the path flattened out a little and I was almost on safe ground. Then I saw the Yellow Flower. It stood on a slender stem against a rock, its closed buds wrapped in the outside-red of its petals. I took a picture of it and admired it in the playback. So delicate, so beautiful.
…And stepped backwards over a rock. They say most accidents on the mountain happen in a fall of no more than three metres. Now I understand why. As I lost my balance my arms groped in mid-air, looking for something to hold onto. There was nothing. I kept thinking, oh, now I’ll regain my balance. I didn’t. I tumbled down the cliffside, thinking, now I’ll stop, oh no, I’m still rolling, still rolling down. It probably took as long as it would take you to say: one thousand and ten, two thousand and ten, three thousand and ten.
And then I stopped. I was lying face-down with ground in my mouth and in front of me sat a bright-green praying mantis, staring at this apparition that had just fallen out of the sky. I stood up. Strangely, I didn’t even think that I might have broken something. I just stood up.
I was so lucky. I had chosen a very well vegetated and cushioned little cliffside to drop over and had come to a stop in a patch of plants and one of those thorny bushes. Bruised, scratched and shaking, I sat in the shade and poured water over my wounds.
The day had changed completely. It went from gold to grey. I suppose I was in a state of light shock. Even as I write this, nine hours and numerous classes of ice-cold Coke later, I feel weird.
It’s as if the mountain I love so much just flicked me off its arm like an insect. The message is clear: I may be your cathedral, but I’m a wild place. To which I can only answer: All the more reason to love you.

Singing in the rain

2010-10-10T22:45:00.004+02:00

Today was a perfect day for walking. Yes, I know it rained. It is still raining as I write. But if you have invested a few hundred rand in excellent waterproof gear, like Jan and I, you are only too pleased when you have the chance to wriggle into it and be the only ones on the mountain.
So it was that we drove up to Kloof Nek like two gladwrapped sausages, waterproofed from the hooded tops of our heads to the tips of our goretexed toes. Low granite-grey clouds flew over the nek. It was a wild afternoon.
I remember once reading a description of a woman in a book that said she was the kind of person who walked in all weather. A rather staunch type. Well, I may not be that staunch but I love all kinds of weather. Fast winds, driving rain, hot sun. I love plunging into the elements, whatever they are. Give it to me, baby. Ok, maybe I am a bit staunch.
We launched ourselves onto the pipe track at Kloof Nek. Now the rain fell horizontally in fat drops and tree branches arched heavily above the path. The water treatment plant above Camps Bay floated into view through a curtain of mist, like a fairytale castle. This red-brick building is one of my favourites in Cape Town.
We didn’t walk very far. But just being in the freshest of fresh air, blowing in all the way from far over the Atlantic, was like a new beginning at the end of the weekend. It made me feel better about the chocolate tart I ate this afternoon and the several glasses of red wine I had at dinner last night.
We sat on a bench under dripping trees with the mist swirling over the ocean below. Raindrops plopped on my head with the sensation of small feet dancing. All around us happy wet frogs croaked in joy.
How can you not sing in the rain.

One golden afternoon

2010-09-28T11:45:00.008+02:00

The afternoon held a golden promise untouched by the icy southeaster that chased empty chips packets down Kloof Street. The sky was swept clear blue and Table Mountain’s western edges stood there shining in the sun.

Five minutes from lounge to mountain is an old story, but after so many years every quick and easy escape feels like the first time. I had my boots on and was on the mountain quicker than it would take most farmers to get into their bakkies and drive to the nearest nice – and I mean very nice – place to walk.

Often I drive to Kloof Nek and let my car decide which way we’re going. Today it was Kloof Corner, the edge of Table Mountain above Camps Bay. The pelargoniums along the path sang in full-throttle purple and a wisp of cloud brushed the top of the mountain.The sun put on its best show. Everything glowed: the stones on the path, the solitary tree blown sideways and the grasses bending in the wind. Even the chipped and peeling old white beacon on Kloof Corner glowed.There I lay down on my back on a terrace of stone and stretched my arms out. The mountain bent over me and swallows dived full-speed into cracks in the rock. Full body contact with old stone makes me happy.
Kloof Corner had two shows on. To the one side lay the city of Cape Town and the blue curve of Table Bay.

To the other side the ravines and buttresses of the Twelve Apostles stood in light and deep shadow between sea and sky. This was the wild view I preferred.

By the time I walked down the path again the glowing afternoon had become liquid gold that spilt into the world around me. The golden light poured off the mountain, washed the sky and splashed and shimmered in the sweet pink sea far below.
And the after-glow lasted until late in the night.

A birthday walk

2010-06-07T20:54:00.006+02:00

A birthday walk on Sunday, a weather forecast gone very wrong and a pack of dogs scaling a mountain. Just another day on Table Mountain.
It was Mike’s 60th and although he seemed to start off a bit gloomy, the mountain soon had him in birthday mood.
The weather forecast was way off. The Sunday newspaper said 27 degrees, but you only had to look out the window to know that forecast was for another city in another hemisphere. Never be under-equipped, is Jannie’s mantra and I know not to argue with him. But gloves! Which mountain was he preparing for?
As it turned out, Table Mountain. Halfway up Constantia Corner the weather turned icy. More like -27. OK, 16 degrees. Mist swirled in, the sun disappeared and so did the people and dogs just ahead of me on the path.
Karen was leading our pack of (unsubservient) humans and (subservient) dogs up to Camel Rock from Constantia Corner. This route is misleading. It looks easy because you never see the whole route ahead of you, but my calves are still hurting a day later. Karen’s pack of dogs, from small to large, were scrambling up the mountain with various degrees of help from human hands.
At the top we found shelter for morning tea under those beautiful weathered rocks, chiselled away by the exact same wind and mist that was swirling around us.
Walking in the mist makes the mountain soft, mysterious; things look different. It’s like a woman wearing a veil.
But we didn’t linger. By noon we were sitting in Barristers, sharing a bottle of red wine and a few beers. Now it didn’t matter what the weather forecast was, we had a birthday to celebrate.

Ultimate art

2010-06-03T17:09:00.007+02:00

We call it Mango Cave because of the unforgettably sweet and juicy mango Jannie and I shared there one afternoon long ago. So, in the mood for a short and sweet walk, I went up to Mango Cave in the middle of the afternoon.
Just before our cave, I noticed the rock wall next to the path. This is the mystery and wonder of Table Mountain. I have walked past there dozens of times, but on this particular afternoon the slant of the sun and the wet glistening on the rock face stopped me in my tracks.
This is not a rock wall, it’s a wall of poems! I sat on a stone next to the path and looked at this wall. As I looked, poems emerged. As I looked closer, even more poems emerged. The beauty developed like a photograph on wet paper in a dark room.
A dry bunch of tiny twigs sat rooted in a damp cushion of moss. A bonsai Erica had all the potential of being a big tree in a park if you forgot about scale. A thin grey branch twisted into a sculpture. Lichen clung to moss and looked silvery in the afternoon light. Dry strands of grass curled into a mass of delicate twists and curved lines. The brightest pink oxalis bloom stuck its cheerful head out above a clump of dry sticks in a song that said the sun is pink and it has risen. Two thin streams of water poured through a patch of green moss, like two small taps at a bathroom basin.
The mountain in its smallest beauty, its most intimate moments. A mountain that holds you close and then shows you her total, open heart.
Last night we went to an art exhibition. Kendell Geers had thrown some bricks through a glass window of a gallery in Roeland Street. Broken glass lay inside on the floor and the bricks were scattered; artfully, I think. There was nothing else in the shop.
I knew it was an art exhibition because there was free wine and snacks at the Kimberley Hotel across the road. On the mountain I didn't need free wine and snacks to point the way.

Here is a rock wall of poems. That's all.

About owls and a farmer poet

2010-05-30T21:07:00.005+02:00

This weekend we gave Table Mountain a break and left for the West Coast armed to the teeth against the expected cold weather: jerseys, all-weather jackets and a two-bar heater I smuggled into the back of the bakkie.
Fortunately the Pater of Noster blessed us with good weather in Paternoster. We had two days of blue skies and sunshine and at night the sea turned silver under the moon and splashed calmly onto the long beach in front of us.
But the story of today’s blog is about owls and a poet farmer. Sticking to the back roads from Velddrif to Hopefield and then to Darling, we noticed many wine barrels attached to the top of poles in fields. We wondered if they could be owls’ nests, but why so many? We stopped in front of a farmer’s gate and I convinced Jannie (who’s far more of a law-abiding citizen than me) that we should trespass 100m and check out a wine barrel. A small square hole had been cut out of the front and we stood there listening for chicks squeaking.
Silence. I picked up a pebble and threw it against the barrel. Silence. We walked back to the gate and then a small blue bakkie appeared on top of the hill. Soon it pulled up next to us and a young farmer with a beard, brown eyes and the shell of a small tortoise on a string around his neck, said: “Are you lost?” I noticed a canvas bag on the seat next to him and thought perhaps he was a farmer who drove around with a gun.
We explained that we were curious about the barrels on top of the poles. Yes, he said, they are indeed owls’ nests. He introduced himself as Johan “Planne” van Niekerk, a farmer from Darling.
He said because so much farmland has been cultivated, most barn owls (nonnetjies, as he called them in Afrikaans) have taken to the mountains, apart from those who have nested in barns.
With so few owls around there has been a plague of mice, who love the sandy soil. The mice became a big problem as they ate the wheat, sometimes clearing whole patches of land of wheat seed as it is sown. Then someone hit on the idea of putting up an owl’s nest, attracting more barn owls back to their original natural habitat.
“I’ve heard one nonnetjie can eat something like 25 mice an hour,” Planne said with a satisfied smile. “We have had some problems with bees or crows taking over the nests, but the farmers clean the nests out once a year,” Planne explained, then leaned towards the open window on the passenger side. “But why are you guys so far on the back roads? What do you do?”
I said I was a writer. Planne, still sitting in his bakkie, said: “A writer!” Then he became quite shy. “Actually, I write poetry. Ag man, I just write about the feelings I have sometimes about farming and so on.” Now even more shy, he opened the canvas bag (the one I thought had a gun in) and said, “I have my poems here”. He took out two notebooks and started paging through them. He had written in a neat long hand in blue ink, sometimes crossing out sections. The whole notebook was full of poetry.
“I’ll read some to you,” he said.
Then, with sheep grazing next to the road on this late Sunday afternoon, the farmer sat behind his steering wheel and read his poems. They were about the bitter aloes that flower like orange flames in a raw winter when everything else has gone wrong. About the way your horse’s sweat seeps onto your skin through your jeans’ seams when you are driving your sheep and cattle up to the winter pastures and how the dry road cracks under the horse’s feet.
And then about his love for a girl who had cancer and what he had seen in her eyes.
Then his cellphone - an iPhone - rang. We said goodbye and so did he.

Soon we got to Cape Town and Table Mountain sat there in the twilight, her outline silhouetted in the shape we love.

A Sunday of delight

2010-05-17T20:45:00.017+02:00

Something strange greeted us in the east when we woke up on Sunday morning. It was the sun. Almost unseen for the past two weeks, it made its re-appearance with a mad jumble of red and pink clouds streaked across the horizon. Every last shred of grey rain and cold was gone. It was a beautiful day.
We met Siegie and Wendy and their ridgeback Duma at Silvermine East. The fynbos exploded with birdsong. Sunbirds and sugarbirds dipped and flapped through the fresh air. Wendy said it was the mating season of the sunbirds. There certainly was excitement in the air as the orange breasted sunbirds with their bright round little bodies danced around the females.
Siegie and Wendy are training for Kilimanjaro, so we took the steepest route up, aiming for Steenberg Peak. The viewpoint up there also happens to be the perfect tea spot. From there we could see mist floating up in a straight line against the mountains in the distance. Clouds scattered high like white shards of an egg that had hatched the deep blue sky. The sun was on our backs and our bare arms. It was 16 May, almost the middle of winter. But the coast was not completely clear, so to speak. We could see fog rolling in from the ocean below us, like a duvet that had slipped off the bottom of the bed. We enjoyed the sun on our arms, knowing that in our packs we had weatherproof jackets and warm tops.
This walk is a walk. From Steenberg Peak the path gradually goes down into the valley and at Junction Pool you can casually walk slightly uphill again towards the Amphitheatre. Nellie’s Pool is along the way, a spot of silver water where there is always a frog or two that plop into the water as soon as they hear feet on the path.
Even the oxalis purpurea unfurled bright pink petals that became paler shades of pink as they opened. They sat in pink clumps all along the path, scatterlings of a spring to come.
We found one of Silvermine’s specialities, the endemic Erica urna-viridis. Just like the name says, its sticky flowers look like small green urns hanging upside down.
On this day of ambling, it was now time for lunch and we found a spot near the Amphitheatre. Here the air moved a little colder and we hid behind one of those rocks carved out by wind and rain.
Then we discovered someone had moved the Amphitheatre. Or rather, it wasn’t where I thought it was. But fortunately we had some level-headed leaders amongst us to keep us on the straight and narrow, or to be more accurate, the winding and narrow path.
Still the delights kept coming. A king protea appeared behind a rock, sitting there in its royal pink fullness, as if waiting for its subjects. On our wandering way down, a rooi Afrikaner dangled its head along the path, a tight bloom in reserve for the next burst of sunshine.
Suddenly there were clouds of flying ants in the air and swifts above us swerving and diving to catch them. Now the air was almost humid.
The last stretch of our ambling way took us over the river and below us we could hear the waterfall splashing down. After a long dry summer, the mountain was singing again with the songs of water.

Big game hunters

2010-05-10T00:04:00.003+02:00

It is a Sunday morning with a new season’s crisp bite in the air, rain soaking the mountain. We jump out of bed and while everyone else in Cape Town pulls their duvets up higher, we pull on our waterproof boots and rain jackets. Time to hunt!
It’s one of the big pleasures of the ‘secret season’, when rain slowly turns the mountain and the slopes emerald green and the first streams of crystal white water splash down summer’s dry ravines.
Our prey is elusive, hiding under leaves and behind fallen tree trunks, blending in with the browns and dark greens of the forest. But we sniff them out, hunt them down and eat them as soon as we get home.
We are mushroom hunters.
There’s a feeling of competitiveness in the air as Jannie and I stop at the Tokai Arboretum. We check out other people walking up the path, watching carefully to see if they have bags or containers of any sort. These days more and more people are mushroom hunters and we don’t want to end up in the same patch of forest as them, staring them down over the stem of a mushroom.
It’s our first hunt of the winter. This is the best time. When the memory of summer is still on your brown skin and you don’t yet have that bleached and soggy feeling that comes after a long winter. We’re excited about the arrival of winter, the change in the air, the autumn blue sky when the sun breaks through, the golden leaves dropping from oak trees. We’ve ordered our first bakkie load of wood and already our wood stove is blazing every evening.
When Heine and Martine arrive we trundle up the Elephant’s Eye path through the forest. Soon we’re spreading out, like detectives looking for clues in a BBC crime series. First we find pepper mushrooms. Not poisonous, just not edible. Many useless pepper mushrooms, but lovely like a Victorian girl with their red blush on porcelain white skins.
Then Martine has a hit: “Isn’t this a pine ring?” We break it off and there is the orange ring in the stem, making pine rings the easiest mushrooms to hunt. A dead cert. Now that we’ve found one, we find more and more, in clumps, in clusters, on their own. We cut them off at the stem, hoping to make sure that next year there’ll be more.
The big prize in the forest is a cep (bolitis) mushroom. Far more scarce and much bigger than pine rings.
Suddenly Heine is diving towards a mother of a mushroom standing proudly on its own on the forest floor of pine needles. It’s a beautiful, perfect cep. Brand new, uneaten by insects, not yet soggy from the rain. This one must have been born in yesterday’s patch of sunshine. Ceps have a thick layer of sponge underneath them, also making it a dead cert once you know what it looks like. Everyone knows the story of old mushroom hunters and bold mushroom hunters, but no old, bold mushroom hunters. We are not old and we are not bold, so we’re taking no chances.

Tokai forest is a joy on this rainy, Sunday morning. We are ziplocked into our waterproof gear, walking up the forest roads, bags of mushrooms in our hands and the smell of new, wet earth in our nostrils. The rain wafts down between the trees in fine silverwhite sprays of water. The first streams are just starting to gurgle through the forest. A frog jumps into the water.
It’s teatime. We sit on wet moss covered rocks and drink our sweet spicy chai from a flask, dipping mother-in-law’s best rusks in the world.
Tree bark glows in the morning winter light, trees sway above us and the mat of pine needles is soft below our feet.
It’s winter. And winter is best, for now.

Walking in soft rain

2010-02-03T21:56:00.004+02:00

The morning started with a low, fast cloud sprinkling rainbow drops into the rising sun. Lion’s Head sunk behind shreds of white cloud flying over Kloof Nek. It wasn't bonny sunny weather and it was not a day for yodelling. It was a day for walking in soft rain. A blog without exclamation marks.

The sun and rain raced each other over the city and the sky, streaking past each other in stripes of light and shade, strobing over the mountain.

Kloof Corner is one of my favourite spots on the mountain; it stands there like the corner of a big family heirloom cupboard. To one side lies the city and the front of Table Mountain, to the other side the Twelve Apostles march away in single file, and today white clouds gathered around their heads.

It was the end of the long hot months and the mountain was as dry as a brown leaf that had fallen off a tree. It took a while for the stones to start shining in the rain, for the raw smell of damp ground to rise and the peppery fragrance of wet fynbos to fill the air.

Drop by diamond drop the rain fell like a very slow dance, a dance where the man holds the woman close. Drops slid off blades of grass, shone like pearls on the pink velvet petals of proteas and made small shiny puddles around stones.

Where Kloof Corner meets the contour path in big, flat rocks I huddled under an overhang and drank some coffee.

And then I walked back. Walking in soft rain.

Deboning a mountain

2010-01-25T22:17:00.006+02:00

Oops, almost a week since I’ve blogged. Doesn’t mean I haven’t been walking on The Mountain. It was another early Sunday start, this time more decently at 7.30. The night before Jannie deboned a chicken a la Julia Child (as in the Meryl Streep movie Julie & Julia), following her advice: “don’t be afraid!” Then he made a crème brulee with his new blowtorch I gave him for Christmas. Ok, so this is not a food blog, but a mountain blog. The talk about food is just to explain the slow start to the expedition.
So up we go. Llandadno ravine awaits, crème bruleed legs, stuffed chicken and an excellent few bottles of wine notwithstanding. Help.
From the car park below Suikerbossie we followed the trail through the cool pine forest and up to the first ridge. Coffee, please. Now. A chilly wind was whipping over the ridge, but we found a spot just below it where we could rest our backs against the rocks. If there’s one thing in the world I’ll never miss, it’s my morning coffee. To have that cup of coffee sitting on the mountain, dipping a rusk and rubbing your fingers on a fragrant buchu bush, well, that is total bliss. We sat for ages with the morning sun on our faces and I slowly felt the life returning to my body, like a chicken being defrosted before being deboned (sorry but the masterpiece was still fondly in my thoughts).
Llandadno ravine looks like it has been carved out of the mountain by someone who was not afraid to make a few deep gashes. In winter water streams down, but now it was dry – and fragrant. The scent from pelargoniums and confetti bushes waft up once they have warmed up in the sun.

Crassulas everywhere, looking like upright chandeliers of luminescent red buds on thick stalks up on the cliffs. One creeping over a rock – remember it’s called a ‘klipblom’ – competing with rusty red lichen.
Rock kestrels swooped, pigeons sat below the steep cliffs giving the wildness a domestic air. And there was a domestic air. Someone had built a low wall out of rocks so that you could shelter under an overhang. There was a cleanly swept spot where a modest fire had been built and a flat stone jutted out like a bedside table. The perfect place to put down your cellphone. It felt like home, so we had to stop for another tea break and slices of Patty’s leftover steak from the night before.
On top of Llandadno ravine sandstone rocks had been weathered into all kinds of shapes by the wind and rain. The edge dropped away suddenly so that you felt as if you were perched on top of the ocean. Llandadno’s white beach curved around its turquoise bay, ships sailed over the horizon and two paragliders caught an updraft above Leeukoppie.
The only mystery was why the rest of the world wasn’t here too. As we looked down onto the multi-million rand mansions below, I felt not a shred of envy. We had the best spot by far.

Death on the mountain

2010-01-19T14:31:00.002+02:00

It was confirmed today. A man fell to his death on Platteklip Gorge on Sunday evening.
Still glowing from our walk in the morning, we were sitting on the deck in the late afternoon when we saw the helicopters. Always a bad sign. And it happens surprisingly often late on a Sunday or Saturday. “Someone has fallen down the mountain again,” I said to Jannie.
You usually get a sense of how serious it is by watching the helicopters. This time there were two or three and they kept buzzing at the top of Platteklip for a long time. This looked serious. The following day the Cape Times reported that a man had fallen off the top of Platteklip Gorge, in front of hikers who were on their way up the mountain. Everyone was traumatised by the fact that the man seemed to have died instantly.
But today’s paper had a slightly different slant on the story. It seemed the man had committed suicide and the medics had found two suicide notes. One was on the 67-year old man’s body and another in a backpack found close to where he jumped off.
People die on Table Mountain every year. Sometimes I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often. One baking Sunday morning we met a family from the Free State with some young children at the bottom of Platteklip Gorge. They asked us for directions. They were dressed in flip-flops, only a few had hats and they didn’t have enough water. Jannie convinced them to take an alternative route along the contour path.
We often get asked for directions – do we look that local? – and it’s usually a sure sign that the hikers are unprepared. But we’ve also learnt that you can’t just tell someone off. Like the guy with the blonde ponytail who was leading a gang of young girls in jeans and sandals up India Venster. He did not appreciate our warnings that it’s a dangerous route. Fortunately there were no helicopters that time...
P.S. READ THE COMMENT FROM ANOTHER BLOGGER BELOW. HE WITNESSED THIS INCIDENT.

Hunting for red disas

2010-01-17T22:41:00.003+02:00

The owls were still flying around this morning when we went up Nursery Ravine to go hunting for red disas. Mike the retired vet insisted we meet him no later than 5.30. It was a good move, although I didn’t think so when the alarm went off at 4.30 on a Sunday morning. Maximum temperatures were forecast today for 35+ and when we came down the mountain four hours later the sweaty red-faced hikers pulling themselves up over hot boulders were not a pretty sight.
It was still a bit early in the year for disas – indigenous orchids - but Mike had heard an unsubstantiated rumour that a few had already been spotted. So up we trudged. We were a third of the way up Nursery Ravine when a golden glow suddenly lit up the trees and moss covered boulders. The sun had risen. Once out of the forest we could see right over False Bay towards Hangklip and a silver cloud cascaded over Silvermine East. Mist touched the earth here and there, floating up from the ground.
My climbing strategy is a slow one, just keep going, even if fuelled only by half a cup of coffee and a rusk, keep going, keep going. Rest as you lift your feet, before you put them down. Breathe. But stuff if. Today I had to rest when the last steep stretch of Nursery Ravine appeared before me. Very annoying that Mike’s 20-something nephews who had slept between 2 – 4 hours and were sweating out last night’s mojitos had started after us and sat at the top waiting for us. I blame my lack of form on the long Christmas holidays.
At last at the top, we ambled through the shade of the clump of trees that date back to the old nursery from 1890. Coral watsonias caught the early morning sun and red crassulas burst against the rocks. (In Afrikaans a ‘klipblom’.)
The blue reservoir dams on top of the mountain always make me feel like I’m in a different country, somewhere like Sweden. At last we reached the little ravine we call Red Disa Gully and there, at our favourite teaspot on a rock next to a mountain pool, were the disas. Still closed. Rumours of disas, tightly curled up.
But over the crest and along a man-built furrow that leads water down to the reservoirs, we saw a flash of red. Two flashes of red. Then another. Disas! There they were, standing tall, their red heads swayed in the breeze. Now you know why they’re called ‘Pride of Table Mountain’. Disa uniflora, the Red Disa.
Further along the stone furrow views rolled out towards Hangklip on the far side of False Bay and a thin veil of mist drew dark shadows on the sea.
And then a glimpse of blue-purple along the path, spotted by a nephew who claimed to have only slept one hour last night. It was a ‘drip disa’, growing in a mossy hollow under dripping rocks, just like the name says, the disa longicornis or Mauve Disa. What a bonus, the first one I’ve ever seen.
Far below us three-million people were going about their Sunday mornings. Up here we felt like the kings and queens of the mountain, finding purple and red orchids in the shade of cool rocks in the middle of a scorching summer. “I love paying zero for a million-dollar experience,” Mike said.
By 10 a.m. we were back at our cars; four and a half hours to our own little corner of paradise and back. And a sweet memory tucked behind our hearts to last the whole week.

A walk to the Khoisan princess' cave

2010-01-06T16:07:00.013+02:00

I haven't been on the mountain for about six weeks. After Christmas, time with family and eight days in the hot, hot Kalahari I'm missing my mountain. Life has been one long heatwave lately. 40+ temperatures in the Kalahari Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, only to arrive back in Cape Town to the bubbling sound of another, or maybe just one long, melted, heatwave.
So this morning, when I saw pale, cool clouds covering the mountain, I went to visit the princess in Silvermine. Most people in Cape Town have spotted the huge cave above Ou Kaapse Weg. You can see the big, shady hole in the mountain from almost anywhere in the Cape Flats. Its official name is Elephant's Eye cave, but I prefer the story of the Khoisan Princess.
According to myth/legend/fireside stories, she lived up there in the 1500's. (The other part of the legend is that the river that ran down there filled the Princess Vlei far below.)
Have to say, after all that sitting in the car over the past few weeks, my legs felt a bit cranky on the first uphill. But all pain was forgotten when I saw a row of salmon petals running up a stalk. Watsonias, or to be precise, watsonia tabularis. She is the beauty of high summer.
When the endorphins start kicking in everything looks special, even a spindly ball of feathery grass seed. Then some more watsonias, etched against the sky where the heat has burnt away the last of the morning’s clouds.
One of the best parts of this route is the path along the shady pines, but not for much longer. This morning I heard the sound of buzzing chainsaws, the day of pine trees on the mountain are over. Then the spot where the stream crosses the path. How often do you actually spot a startled frog plop into a stream? Reminds me of the haiku I read: The old pond/a frog jumps in/plop.
In the stream art and poems float around. Open seed pods. A dead moth on a grass stalk. And the tinkling of water on a hot day; the sweetest sound.
The path leaves the shade behind and a breeze catches a carpet of restios, grassy heads dipping, whispering, sooshing. A radio crackles at the fire look-out. I’ve never seen someone here before. A man called Alvin sticks his head out the window, two teardrop golden earrings dangling and wearing a t-shirt that says ‘toxic is the new black’. Can you figure that one out?
He’s listening to Good Hope FM and reckons this is the most boring job in the world. His job is to watch the mountains from Silvermine East, over theeere... to Constantia Nek, way over theeeere. They dazzle and sizzle in the heat, blue ridges simmering, green forests hanging on, turquoise sky flying into infinity. But Alvin is not impressed. On his narrow 20-something shoulders rests an awesome responsibility. Don’t let Table Mountain burn! And this is fire season. Yesterday and today are high risk, full alert days.
After the last 50m steep climbing in the mid-morning sun (hold legs, hold), the cave is a moist, green, cool, velvet, fern-lined princess chamber. And just in case you were wondering, Jungle was here in ’08. Or so says the graffiti.
Sitting up there, looking out over the flatlands, the lakes, the long white beach, the miles of foamy waves breaking, can you really imagine anything but a princess living here?