March 29, 2015
A full night’s sleep in a real bed is wonderful! We woke up
in time to go for a short walk next to the beach before enjoying a lazy
breakfast. Over breakfast, we made a plan for the day: cycling in Table
Mountain National Park. We didn’t exactly manage to get an early start with
cycling (a few wrong turns), but we finally found a track by the side of the
road which led us to the Rhodes Memorial. There is a lovely view of the city
from the memorial, and it is a stately monument, but I feel somewhat conflicted
about it, having learned that Cecil Rhodes wasn’t necessarily such a great guy.
After a detour on what turned out to be a footpath, we were
directed to the mountain bike trail. The trail is essentially an old jeep
track, making it perfect for me – not very technical, but varied terrain and a
bit different from asphalt. We rode up to Devil’s Peak under hot sunshine,
enjoying views of the steep face of the mountain. From Devil’s Peak, there is a
paved road, which we followed to the base of the cable car, then turned around
and ended up just taking the same way back.
The excursion was extremely satisfying: I felt that I got a
bit more comfortable riding over rocks and gravel, without ever getting into a
situation that I couldn’t handle, and it was a very nice way to get a bird’s
eye view of the city. Dražen agrees that the view of the port – huge cranes and
several vessels floating in the bay – was a highlight. Once we had returned and
showered, we set up the tent just to make sure everything was there (it was,
and it’s different from the previous tent, but should serve its purpose) and
went out for some grilled yellow tail (and ice cream!).
Rhodes Memorial
Table Mountain
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