The old Cape Province is full of scenery, prehistoric landscapes, nature reserves – and wine trails.
The Apostles and the Table
On the Atlantic side, the Twelve Apostles march southward through the Cape Peninsula.
The flat top of Table Mountain, the landmark flat-topped rock that plateaus at over 1,000 m elevation, lifts warm south-easterly airs into colder elevations where their moisture condenses into the “table cloth”. The cloth drapes and sometimes smothers the mountain entirely.
City planners have kept development off the elevated areas, and viewed from the surrounding peaks such as Signal Hill, Cape Town remains settled like a viscous liquid on the plains.
Table Mountain National Park, which encompasses the namesake rock, buttresses Cape Town to the south before the African continent dwindles toward the Cape.
All vantage points command a high view of the surrounding coastline, valleys, and towns.
Parts of the rock are overrun with rock hyraxes – the world’s cutest mammal. Hyraxes look like rodents, but are evolutionarily distinct. South Africans call them dassies.
The view here is of Bakoven, one of Cape Town’s elite seaside suburbs.
The peak to the left of the City Bowl is Lion’s Head, some 670 m above sea level. The rest of the green ridge running north is Signal Hill, featured above, once known by the Dutch as Leeuwen Staart (Lion’s Tail).
Out in Table Bay is Robben Island, home of the Apartheid era prison which held Nelson Mandela for 18 years.
Table Mountain forms the northern extremity of a sandstone mountain range that runs to the Cape Point.
These dassies look south to sea from the Cape of Good Hope.
