Caching in Cape Town

[+2202]

Returned last week from a holiday in Cape Town, which had a bit of caching thrown in. Just to say that its a great place to go to with everything amazingly cheap, with a tremendous caching infrastructure. The local caching community held a Sundowner Event on Signal Hill in my honour which was superb, although I bought along some UK weather, and the location of a large number of caches was breathtaking. One in particular Sailors Star felt like it was at the end of the earth, gobsmaking, the arrow on the photo wont help you find it but its there, next stop Antarctica. The beach to the left is pretty special too.

Take it from me, Cape Town is well worth a visit!

[+Dorsetgal & GeoDog]

That's a fantastic picture, thanks for sharing that insight into caching in SA; it's not on my immediate list but it's good to hear of other cachers adventures.

 

I was also interested to see that at the cache you linked to the previous log was also a Brit, our very own Goldpot!

[+Firth of Forth]

That's a fantastic picture, thanks for sharing that insight into caching in SA; it's not on my immediate list but it's good to hear of other cachers adventures.

 

I was also interested to see that at the cache you linked to the previous log was also a Brit, our very own Goldpot!

 

And a few logs before that, my partner Jack Aubrey! Here is an extract of his geocaching adventures log that he wrote for our Scottish forum:

 

"The first part of the journey to Cape Town was the flight to Heathrow which I shared with a lady who insisted on eating the filling from BA's sandwich without eating the bread. Happily she was transferring to a transatlantic flight.... The rest of the journey was much more agreeable, slightly aided by an upgrade to first

 

Arrival saw me getting entangled with South African officialdom. I'd been asked to get 2 botles of whisky as gifts for my Minister to give to his counterparts at the conference we are attending. So did as I was bid. Should have read the small print: only one bottle allowed duty free into RSA. After a while I got the duty paid (just over a pound, for which I received a two-page receipt).

 

Once at the hotel, I met up with the rest of the small Scottish contingent. The South African Government was taking no chances on security and each Minister and party is allocated two close protection officers. We tried going for a walk around the new Waterfront development in Cape Town (more like Leith than you want to imagine...) but it didn't really work. And more importantly, you can't do much caching in these circumstances. But I did manage to grab a virtual at the harbour entrance.

 

So we negotiated with the minders, who, being decent chaps, readily agreed to turn themselves into tour guides and they whistled up a vehicle and drove us along the coast to Simon's Town and the African penguin colony on the beach. I learned later that the two caches in the area had been disabled, but, to be honest, I was so taken with the penguins that I couldn't be bothered looking for boxes. The little creatures wander round through the kids on the beach without a care and will cheerfully pose for photographs. They lurk everywhere (there is a sign in the car park asking you to check for penguins beneath your vehicle before moving off.)

 

Then back into Cape Town along the high road acoss the flank of Table Mountain and on to Signal Hill which looks out towards Robben Island (where Mandela, among others, was imprisoned). I knew there was a cache nearby and persuaded the assembled company to let me give a caching demonstration. There were the expected expressions of sympathy for my affliction but when I returned with a TB, the questions started to flow and the two protection officers took the website details. (If GC.com gets closed down on security grounds, it's not my fault, honest!)

 

Two caches for a day was not a great haul. But I felt that there were mitigating circumstances.

 

Today (Sunday) was different. A colleague and I got up early determined to have a go at Table Mountain. Because the Minister wasn't coming with us, we were free to go unprotected. And I'd got a caching plan worked out the night before (not a caching plan in the sense that FoF would use the term, of course; but a plan, nevertheless).

 

Cape Town must be one of the most beautiful cities in the world in terms of location. The city itself is not a great gem, but the location between the huge sandstone terraces of the mountain and the sea, coupled with the climate is peerless. The mountain forms a long, sheer-sided, flat-topped ridge behind the city and lies about 15 minutes drive by cab on a Sunday morning from the centre. There is a cable-car at the eastern end of the ridge, but it can't run in strong winds. Today was such a day, but we were intent on getting up on foot anyhow.

 

About 3,500 feet high, rising from pretty much sea level and a couple of miles or more long, the wall of Table Mountain is like a bit of Torridon dropped into Africa. Except for the vegetation. There are more varieties of plant on Table Mountain than there are in the whole of the British Isles. Meadows of purple irises, fields of wild geraniums, forests of what look like cone-bearing succulents. It was like climbing through a botantical garden. And except for the wild-life. Brightly coloured lizards and insects, "dassies" a kind of rabbit sized creature (related most closely it's said - rather bizarrely - to the elephant) that has developed sticky feet to move more securely round the mountain flanks. And very much except for the climate. If only Scottish hills were always so balmy!

 

The Platteklip Gorge makes height quickly, over a succession of rocky steps into a final narrow section with impressively overhanging walls that pops you out suddenly like a cork from a bottle into a wee dip on the summit plateau about a third of the way along the ridge from the eastern end. And it is a plateau: Table Mountain looks flat from below because it is all but flat on top. The Gorge disgorged us at about 1040 meters. The "summit" at Maclear's Beacon about a mile and a half to the west is at 1085.

 

We set off for the Beacon along the edge of the escarpment facing out over the City and the Cape Peninsula. A series of expostulatory emails were blackberried to FoF - she's accurately reflected the flavour of the gibbering. It is truly a stunning place to be. Technically, of course, you can't see both the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. The huge "False Bay" on the Eastern side of the Cape Peninsula which Magellan thought was the Indian Ocean when he'd rounded the Cape of Good Hope is still geographically the Atlantic. But it's so different in character and temperature from the sea to the West of the Cape that it really should be the Indian Ocean!

 

Maclear's Beacon discharged a micro that a previous visitor had rescued from water-logged squalor. My companion was duly impressed that my Foretrex had led me to such a tiny thing across more than half the world. I knew then that I had a convert.

 

On across the other edge of the plateau, gazing out across the rolling hills of the Cape wine country. Up towards the sharp Eastern prow of the Mountain and Fountain Peak, a rocky prominence with stunning views (just like every other point on the hill!). Consulting my GPSr, I declared that we were close to the cache and Tim spotted it in its hidey hole. Hooked! He invented a caching name for himself on the spot (inspired by the Torridonian setting) and signed the log. I left Malinky's kiwi coin to continue its journey to New Zealand from here - a 6,000 mile start of Skinny's, provided the cache isn't next visited by a Brit!

 

After romping out to the far end of the rocky ridge of Fountain Peak with a bit of enjoyable scrambling (sorry, FoF! ) we cut back up to collect a cache near the top station of the cable car. Tim now all for "where's the next one?" At the station we met a group of young British climbers who wanted their group photo taken. And very one of them had a camera and they all wanted a shot on their memory card. So Tim and I were festooned with other people's cameras while the group posed. We thought for a moment about what we could make on Ebay, but reckoned the youngsters were probably fit enough to catch us. We left them taking the next series of group pictures (the "sunshine pose") for themselves...

 

Back down the Gorge (hard on the knees) and a long a countour path that led through a grove of pines, across a waterfall, under a 300 metre sandstone roof and past a holm-oak to find the next cache. Or, rather, to find ourselves 500 feet above it. Another kilometre of walking to get to and down the zig-zag that would get us to it. Why didn't we go straight down the slope? The flowers here are gorgeous; but they are interspersed with bush that makes the Scottish use of the term "jaggy" for feeble stuff like thistles, thorns and brambles positively wimpish.

 

After the last cache "Top Billing" (so-called because it was placed to star in a TV film about caching) we thought about walking up to the bottom Cable Car station to call a cab. And what should come by at that moment? Fortune favours the seriously sun-burned!

 

Back to the hotel just in time to shower and change and put the shoes worn for the day's epic into a cupboard that now smells like a compost bin. Then down to the lobby to meet Tricky Vicky and Mickey and CownChicken, African cachers who had kindly emailed me their suggestions for local caches and much else besides. And they did me the further favour of introducing me to Windhoek beer......

 

Journeys end with cachers' meetings........

 

Well, if I finsih this quickly, there might be time for another Windhoek...

 

Refreshed Jack"

[+John Stead]

I have just been fascinated by FoF's posting and looked back at the photo of the peninsula (yes I do know that is not where she was writing of).

I've never been there but one of my earliest TBs did some time ago - sadly the cache was muggled and the TB never seen again!

[+Firth of Forth]

I have just been fascinated by FoF's posting and looked back at the photo of the peninsula (yes I do know that is not where she was writing of).

I've never been there but one of my earliest TBs did some time ago - sadly the cache was muggled and the TB never seen again!

 

Unfortunately I have never been to Capetown. It was my partner, Jack Aubrey (not his real name of course!), who was there and wrote about his caching adventures.

[+John Stead]

I have just been fascinated by FoF's posting and looked back at the photo of the peninsula (yes I do know that is not where she was writing of).

I've never been there but one of my earliest TBs did some time ago - sadly the cache was muggled and the TB never seen again!

 

Unfortunately I have never been to Capetown. It was my partner, Jack Aubrey (not his real name of course!), who was there and wrote about his caching adventures.

Sorry - I should have read it properly. Thanks for putting me right.