Climbing in Cape Town, South Africa

Rappelling down after some Table Mountain cragging

Cape Town is an amazing place. Steep mountains that rise straight up from white sand beaches are easily accessible from the City Bowl by a quick Uber ride! During our month in South Africa, we explored some of the local climbing areas that featured old-school trad multi-pitches on Table Mountain and steep sandstone sport crags at Silvermine. With limited time, we opted for day trips out of the city but only scratched the surface of what the region has to offer. Other areas that would deserve their own dedicated trips include visits to Montagu and Cederburg (home to Rocklands) but also require a rental car and camping gear if you really want to do it right!

Touristing in Cape Town, South Africa

One month in Cape Town, South Africa sounds like a long time, but I feel like we only scratched the surface in this vibrant city! We arrived at the beginning of February without our luggage. This was not surprising because when we showed up at the airport in Calgary 28 hours earlier, the first leg of our journey was canceled due to snowstorms in Vancouver. As a result, we scrambled to change our flights and connections. We actually ended up with a better schedule, arriving 1 hour earlier in Cape Town than our original itinerary. Arriving in a new country after dark is always an interesting experience, especially when the South Africans sitting across the isle from us on the flight had been horrified to hear that we were traveling on our own. Despite our assurance that we were going to be staying with some locals (not actually the case) the woman warned us about the dangers of Cape Town enough for us to start wondering if we had made a mistake about this trip. Most of the information we had found seemed to contradict this woman's concern and stated that although Cape Town has a violent reputation, it is easy to stay safe and out of trouble.

Once we learned we would be leaving the airport without our luggage (or any of our climbing gear that we had checked), we took an uber to the Air B&B we had rented for the month. I had printed out instructions on how to get into the building but we didn't have any way of contacting the owners if we couldn't get in. Our plan was to pick up a SIM card the next day so we were relying on WiFi and everything looked pretty closed. The uber driver dropped us off on a deserted street outside a condo complex encircled by a spiky metal fence and drove away. It was well lit but unnerving nonetheless. When we couldn't get through the security gate we started to panic, but after 4 attempts the caretaker finally answered the buzzer and let us in. What a relief. 

The bachelor pad - our home for a month

Cape Town Hikes

Cape Town South Africa is probably one of the most beautiful cities in world thanks to its stunning ocean, beaches and mountains. Kyle and I had the opportunity to explore the area close to town by ticking off some of the top hiking trails, most of which were different ways up the predominant feature in the city, Table Mountain. I have included a small write up and photos for each of the hikes that we did:

1. Kasteelsport (Table Mountain)

2. Skeleton Gorge (Table Mountain)

3. India Venesters (Table Mountain)

4. Lions Head (Signal Hill)

5. Disa Hike (Hout Bay)

The view of Cape Town from the top of Table Mountain (near the cable car station)