Table Mountain. Photo courtesy of Maggie Ball

We didn’t spend too long in Pretoria – in fact the same day we flew over to Cape Town. We were picked up by a local quilter – Maggie was going to teach there – and taken straight to our hostel. After a relatively quiet night, the next day was a beautiful one so we went straight up to Table Mountain. Since the weather is so fickle on top of the mountain – including the ubiquitous cloud the locals call the “tablecloth” – we knew that we’d have to book it if we wanted the best experience possible.

View from Table Mountain

So we hurried up and were rewarded with a completely clear day! There is a really convenient cable car that takes you to the top of the mountain so instead of really exerting ourselves we just took advantage of that. It allowed us to walk around more of the top of the mountain, which is an interesting place!  Did I mention that it rotates during the ride up and down so that you get a 360 degree panorama of the city?

Cable Car

Dramatic Crevasse

Made it across the top!

View to the South

Our final surprise of table mountain was to find the closest known living relative of the elephant – the fearsome Dassie:

Dangerous Dassie

Okay – so it can’t tear down trees or stab you with its tusks (it has small ones inside its mouth) but it does have the ability to stick to rocks and flatten its ribcage while evading eagles.  Very ugly creature, but clearly capable of surviving in the harsh alpine environment!

Dassie Family