We've been occupied since Ambereen's parents arrived from Pakistan but we were able to break away for an afternoon to explore Table Mountain. This is not a mountain to take lightly as many people do. It must be the proximity to Cape Town which gives people a false sense of security. Although the mountain is covered in trails, there are only a few which one can take that doesn't require climbing equipment. It is difficult to get trail maps and the books are $30. Not much worthwhile in between. With that said we figured that it made sense to take the tram then explore the trails up top. The tram is R220 round trip and the car rotates 360 degrees as it climbs. It's very steep at the top and you can see people climbing the mountain on the way.
There are many trails up top so we took a route to Maclear's Beacon.
The highest point on Table Mountain is marked by a large cairn, built by Sir Thomas Maclear in 1865. But the cairn was not built to mark the height of Table Mountain, it was to assist in measuring the curvature of the earth.
There is a tremendous about of biodiversity at the top including water, moss, toads and feynbos. If it weren't for the views you would never know that you were at the top of a mountain. As is the case in all of the parks, once you get away from the areas that aren't hard to get to the crowds are sparse so it's much more peaceful. All these damn foreigners around!
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