Saturday walks in the Cape: Saturday was a day of walks for us. We hadn’t planned any of these walks but the view from our bedroom window in Lakeside is of the Steenberg Plateau in the Table Mountain National Park and at 7am on Saturday (who needs children when you have dogs to obliterate the thought of ever sleeping late!) it looked too gorgeous in the early morning sunshine to not take an amble up it!
So, we put on suitable footwear, packed a backpack with water and other supplies, put the dogs on the back of the bakkie and off we went…
The walk starts off at a fairly gentle pace but gradually the climbing begins! I don’t mean climbing in terms of scrambling over rocks or needing crampons of any kind but it did remind me of walking up a never ending staircase. However, the views are in short, spectacular.
It was a bit hazy in the morning but that said, the view out over False Bay was clear enough and it was easy to see over Zandvlei. The smell of the fynbos was heavenly and although there was one other person ahead of us we couldn’t see him so it felt as if we had the whole mountain to ourselves.
After about 40 minutes of walking we sat down for a drink of water and just absorbed the views all around us. We didn’t make it all the way to the top (the never ending staircase got the better of my knees) but there are a lot more Saturday mornings to make it to the summit!
A lot of the walks in the park are dog friendly and our two had a whale of a time and were exhausted when we got them back home (there is method in the madness of getting up at 7am!)
On Saturday afternoon we joined two friends in Hout Bay. The idea was too climb Little Lions Head but finding the starting point proved to be a bit of a challenge so we left Hout Bay and tried the assault from the Llandudno side.
This too proved to be easier said than done so not to be beaten on the beautiful Autumn day that it was, we parked near Sandy Bay and made our way in the general direction of the rocks; traversing the beach, through the fynbos and over the boulders to find a suitable place to sit for a picnic.
This too is a lovely walk although the fynbos can, in some places, be very overgrown (we had to scramble through a short section on our haunches).
However, once through that and onto the rocks there are a number of massive boulders to find a spot on and there can be nothing better than sipping on a glass of wine, eating a wedge of Fairview Camembert and watching the waves. We were lucky enough to see a huge school of dolphins and seals (there must have been 50 or 60 of them in total), playing in the waves.
We decided to opt for the easy route back to the cars and went straight across the beach instead of fighting the fynbos … I recommend this! It is possible to keep going along the coastline all the way around to Hout Bay but this takes about six hours and can at times be treacherous so please be aware of this.
What a wonderful day out in the fresh air and sunshine and to end it all off we took the scenic Chapmans Peak Drive route home – absolutely splendid!
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