Table Mountain and Lion’s Head

Many tourists and locals make their way to the top of the mountain, most by car or bus and then taking the cable car. But of course, I don’t like to do things in half measures so I thought, why don’t I hike up? A couple of my friends had done it in the past so I was determined to climb to the top…

What Was I Thinking?!

To set the scene, I was there for my friends’ wedding and I had visited Cape Town a few times before. But on this trip hiking was the one touristy thing I wanted to do, even though I’ve never actually been hiking before! I know what a lot of you must be thinking: why would someone choose to walk and/or climb in the hot sun for hours and hours.

Which kind punishment?Imagine if something bad were to happen, they’ll now say “who sent you?” In spite of all this, I really wanted to do it but I only had Monday free.

So Sunday night I’m sitting at games night with some of the other wedding guests and I start researching on google:

“hike table mountain”, “table mountain hiking difficulty”, “table mountain hiking beginner”.

As I was reading, I was sweating! At least three hours to hike, potential safety concerns, extremely steep and/or narrow parts of the trail – see me see wahala. I mean seriously who sent me??

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It didn’t take me long to decide that Table Mountain was not my portion. What I found instead was a more beginner-friendly hike up nearby Lion’s Head. It’s literally right next to Table Mountain, and about as high. It would be less that two hours to get to the top and it was apparently even child-friendly.

Monday Morning…

Monday morning came in no time and I set out with a group of friends who I had managed to convince to come with we. We took a taxi to the bottom of the trail, and off we went. The weather was quite cool, thank God, so we eased into it. It wasn’t a bad start sha, and in fact there were people with kids also just setting off or just climbing back down.

By about one hour into our hike, the path had narrowed quite a lot, in some places it could only accommodate people single file so we had to set up a mini traffic system with people coming back down the hill in the other direction. The views were absolutely worth it though! You could see 360-degrees around you over the course of the climb because you basically spiral up the mountain.

Another hour in and we had a decision to make – There was a fork in the road – on one path we would have to climb a vertical wall using a series of hand and footholds built into the rock, and on the other route, we could continue our hike along the same types of path, but it would take longer. Which do you think we went for?

On Top of the World

We finally reached the summit and let me tell you, it was incredible!

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I honestly don’t have the words to describe how I felt standing at the top of that mountain. A small achievement for some maybe, but for me it was huge! I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and embraced a whole different way of thinking. Of course, I also got to spend time with some incredible people and we’ll always have those shared memories.

I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Written by Louisa Awolaja.

Lou is a foodie, world-traveller and blogger at .