Tablemountainnationalpark on The Singemonkey

February 23, 2025

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:08:38 +0000

I overcame my trepidation and found the path up from the Blockhouse to the scout hut - most of the way to the top. I got lost and got my legs scratched up a few times. The route is very poorly marked. I can’t help thinking without other information that rescue services could save a ton of money by simply putting good markers and clear information on the paths.

Anyway. Now I’ve found the path I can extend my route even to Maclear’s Beacon - the highest point on our modest little mountain.

February 23, 2025

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:02:36 +0000

Lots of drama on the mountain today. A big fire was raging above Kirstenbosch seemingly. Throughout my extended hike the Apocalypse Now thudding of Hugheys flying constant relays to dump water on the fire. Pic 2 shows what it looked like when I first started my walk. It’s much reduced now but I still hear the helicopters from home. @johnthevudio is hard at work on the fire line I believe.

February 19, 2025

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 17:52:22 +0000

Got up early this morning and did my blockhouse walk. Just took my phone to compare to the canon s95 digicam. The phone is definitely better. Better detail. Better colour. Easier to carry. And this is a 2020 iPhone SE - not regarded as a photographic powerhouse.

I’m a huge fan of cameras over phones but I don’t think a camera with a tiny phone-sized sensor really has any advantage. The real benefit of cameras is their much larger sensors and the creative control that goes with them. Digicams are just vibes.

February 17, 2025

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 16:41:31 +0000

Trying to get some examples of pics that the digicam can do better than a phone. I was up the mountain again on Saturday morning. I’ve seen some cunning designs for telephoto lenses for phones using a mirror or prism so they can run lengthwise down the phone body. But at present telephotography on phones is minimal.

Still. With a similar sized sensor, a digicam photo just has a busy crowded feeling compared to the crispness of a bigger sensor like even a micro 4/3 camera.

February 12, 2025

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 22:18:42 +0000

Back on my mountain walk this morning for the first time in a long time. Amazingly there were cultists bellowing early Wednesday morning. I took @withoutaleaf’s old canon S95 digicam. Apart from the zoom lens I’m not sure that the results are really better than my phone.

June 16, 2024

Sun, 16 Jun 2024 10:14:40 +0000

Milestones: I managed to catch some of the cultists in this first pic (for those unfamiliar with my discussion of Rhodes Memorial cultists, I use the term in the anthropological sense of a niche religious society - not to refer to toxic cults). This one distinguished itself by blowing on huge corkscrew horns of the kudu antelope like a Southern African shofar.

I decided to take a pic at each kilometre of my walk. Of course Sod’s law meant there was an interesting picture just ten meters before or after I hit the mark. Still. Interesting to note where each of these markers is on my walk. The straight up climb between km 1 (at the memorial after walking up from the windmill) to 2 (just below the contour path) is where all the sweat and wheezing happens.

June 15, 2024

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 12:37:46 +0000

Last one for a bit, I promise.

June 15, 2024

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 12:25:31 +0000

Another from the rainy day in Newlands Forest. The D600 is just young enough to have live view for composing but old enough that it’s awful at it.

June 15, 2024

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 12:18:05 +0000

More ferns. But this time from a walk in Newlands Forest a few weeks ago during the rains. I was having a great time out there until the eyepiece of the camera dislodged my hard contact lens - sending it tumbling to the endless complexity of the forest floor. It might as well have fallen through a wormhole into another dimension. An expensive mistake.

June 15, 2024

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 12:04:55 +0000

@kanesnaps and I trying to get back into regular mountain walks. We started small with the popular Constantia Neck walk to this ferny cliff with its ever trickling water. I felt these steps coming down here had a Lord of the Rings feel.

I walked up to here in my new hiking boots - a completely traditional all-leather, stitched sole type to replace my high technology Zamberlans that have finally worn out after a literal quarter century. Thing about traditional leather boots though: wearing them in is a painful trial. But experience says that once that’s done they’ll be more comfortable than any off-the-shelf synthetic footwear. I swapped to my ancient trail running shoes - a hand-me-down from @jason66c - for the second half.

August 06, 2023

Sun, 06 Aug 2023 11:59:32 +0000

It’s the first time I’ve done this walk since March. So much going on with the cat boi going missing and then getting injured. I decided to take my camera. I just can’t get good results with a phone although some people can. I’ve also changed laptops and still haven’t sorted out my photos again. So I edited these on my phone.

March 26, 2023

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 11:01:44 +0000

Winter is sweeping in early this year. It’s been a bit dreary since late February.

March 12, 2023

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 08:54:38 +0000

It’s been a few moons since my last windmill to blockhouse walk. And wouldn’t you know, the windmill is complete. Fully restored at last. Ok maybe they still have one sail to raise.

It was the Cape Argus cycle race - which I’d forgotten. It’s South Africa’s most prestigious race. I’m a what? A bicyclist rather than a cyclist. I have mixed feelings about the sports cycling community. They are arguably a hindrance weirdly to bicycles being prioritised as a mode of transport. But the distaste for them frequently goes dangerously too far.

October 29, 2022

Sat, 29 Oct 2022 10:20:53 +0000

Well I’m sure you’ve all just been dying for another of my blockhouse walk photodocs… I had a cold and was waiting to come right before re-embarking on exercise. Hopefully the fact that I’m typing this rather than lying dead from a stroke means I waited long enough.

For the first time I decided to listen to music on my walk. Well… you add that mountain feeling to those music feelings and you can get pretty close to ecstasy, no lie. I had some thoughts:

October 10, 2022

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 20:53:48 +0000

Leucodendrons, @kanesnaps tells me. A very pretty and delicate protea that looked quite spectacular in spring profusion, painting the entire mountainside yellow.

October 10, 2022

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 20:44:57 +0000

@kanesnaps and I went heroically up the mountain by a new route (for me) and found that rock that looks like a camel from certain angles.

It was lovely up there, where the traffic noise suddenly disappears and you’re in this magic park in the sky filled with the astonishing diversity of plants in the fynbos botanical region.

Kane almost got bitten by a very unfortunate young puff adder that had been run over (almost certainly by accident since it was so well camouflaged on the road - such that Kane nearly didn’t see it too). Luckily some guys working up there arrived in a truck and ended it’s suffering with a sharp spade since it was way too injured to possibly survive.

September 16, 2022

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 08:50:29 +0000

Hail Eos, goddess of dawn (that feeling when you realise you’re the cultist 😂).

I got to see a pair of lovely Boubou shrikes right by the path and said, “Hey Boo.

September 11, 2022

Sun, 11 Sep 2022 11:24:28 +0000

The cultists apparently don’t come out if there’s a danger of rain. Instead of their shouting and wailing there was a choir of frogs. About as loud but less chaotic. I did encounter a pleasant old Zionist on the way down. But since that’s the biggest religious denomination in South Africa - if I recall correctly - he couldn’t be called a cultist.

September 03, 2022

Sat, 03 Sep 2022 09:58:37 +0000

A walk in the clouds. I had a cold for a couple of weeks so this is the first time I’ve been up in a good while. It’s spring in Cape Town and the evidence was everywhere. In the last pic you can see that work on the windmill is progressing nicely. I was pleased to hear the old familiar hollering and moaning of the cultists.

July 24, 2022

Sun, 24 Jul 2022 18:40:15 +0000

This is from a few days ago when @withoutaleaf and I were up on Plum Pudding Hill. I just wanted to post this to remind myself of this handful of mature silver trees that survived the fire. The trunks were scorched but they came through unlike most.

I mentioned that silver trees are hard to photograph. It’s because the top side of the leaf has a gorgeous metallic shine thanks to a profusion of fine hairs. But the underside is a deep green. In photographs this usually gives the impression that they’re a kind of grey green tree. But up close and personal, they’re just spectacular.

July 24, 2022

Sun, 24 Jul 2022 18:30:52 +0000

Second mountain expedition of the day. Kane (@kanesnaps) led Junko (@junko28a) and me up Kalk Bay at a blistering pace. I worked out it must be over twenty years since I last went up this route. And that’s a shame because it’s so lovely. The vegetation and landscape transforms so quickly - you’re rapidly surrounded by the most varied and beautiful fynbos - and the contrast between the white sand and the acquamarine of False Bay is a balm for the soul. And so lovely to share the mountain with much loved people. Second time in a week!

July 24, 2022

Sun, 24 Jul 2022 09:44:20 +0000

I’m heading out thaddaway this afternoon for a different bit of mountain. Pic 2: cork trees really demonstrating why that bark we find so useful evolved. The fire swept through them but all survived in their protective coats. These aren’t indigenous trees but I hope they preserve a couple of the big ones. Pic 3: to my delight, @withoutaleaf joined me on my mountain jaunt the other day. She pointed out the profusion of silver tree saplings that are coming up everywhere after the fire. I’d managed not to notice. Fire is, of course, part of the protea life cycle - hence the name. I can’t describe how beautiful silver trees are. And they’re hard to photograph for a number of reasons. But in real life they’re like something Tolkien and Doctor Seuss would come up with by the fireside after several glasses of wine.

July 16, 2022

Sat, 16 Jul 2022 13:29:52 +0000

A perfect winter’s day here in Africa.

Update on the cultists: I saw a few close up and they seem very nice. I’ve started to find them reassuring. I also encountered some coming down from above Rhodes Memorial (I inferred they weren’t hikers as one seldom hikes with a large black hardcover book in hand). If people are going to be religious, I think incorporating serious physical activity is a cracking idea in our sedentary society.

July 09, 2022

Sat, 09 Jul 2022 09:42:21 +0000

A bit of a gloomy morning. They’ve begun restoration of the windmill after last year’s fire.

Despite being a Saturday the cultists were out in fine form on the lower slopes, clapping erratically as if to banish devils. I find them rather comforting now.

June 26, 2022

Sun, 26 Jun 2022 09:28:59 +0000

I got to the mountain well early and got to see the first light hit Devil’s Peak. And yet I passed people coming down as I was going up. There’s a whole community of very fit people of all descriptions up there.

It’s nice being proper fit again. I think there’s a threshold of fitness beyond which most exercise becomes much more enjoyable - challenging rather than trying. But it’s not easy for most people to reach that in systems that relentlessly encourage sedentary living.

June 19, 2022

Sun, 19 Jun 2022 10:45:05 +0000

I tried ascending past the blockhouse after a comment from @suhairsolomon until the scramble gave way to an alarming verticality and I thought I should check the route and come back next time.

Notes: the lower slopes are dotted with cults - usually with one person shouting excitedly. But the one I passed closest to were spread out about 4m from each other all saying different stuff rapid fire. As Buffy The Vampire Slayer put it: “Note to self: Religion… freaky.”

June 18, 2022

Sat, 18 Jun 2022 12:37:30 +0000

Newlands Forest was mighty damp after the huge amount of rain we had last week. To cross the streams with dry feet I had to do some tricky hops on slippery rocks. I amazed myself by managing to cross three of these rain gorged torrents without falling in.

A second mountain biker alerted me to their presence with a bike bell. That makes two… ever. It’s such a tiny, inexpensive object but it conveys so much respect to the other mountain users. Most of them though, are not well-loved by the rest of us. I have a bell on my bike just for getting myself around, let along tearing down narrow, twisting tracks. Sport riders in Cape Town need to be better.