Hiking- its what I do

(note the above picture is taken on the Skeleton Gorge Trail on the Camps Bay side)
Since I arrived in Cape Town, I have gone hiking almost every weekend. Yes, this is a little bit excessive, but it has been fabulous. This weekend I managed to squeeze in two hikes, one to Lion's Head and the other to Skeleton Gorge. I throughly enjoyed both of these endeavors. I had previously climbed Lion's Head (which I actually think looks more like a Gorilla's Head) on a rather cloudy day. The repeat hike occurred on a breathtaking clear sunny day, so I appreciated actually seeing views of the city rather than clouds, although the previous hike was magical. The hike to the top of Lion's Head usually only takes an hour, which Heloise and I completed in this time range, while the rest of our group took much longer. Once arriving to the top of the mountain, we waited for 30 minutes for the others. I enjoyed staying on the top for such a long period of time, but I didn't know where the rest of my group had ventured off. After occupying the top of Lion's Head for over an hour, it was time to descend. It was already 5, so that meant that the sun would soon set. I rushed with some of the others to see the sunset at a lower level, overlooking the sea. The sunset was spectacular, but half of our group was not with us. We waited over 30 minutes before the others caught up. At this point, it was dark, and we still had a considerable distance to complete before we would be done with the trail. The trail is semi-steep and parts of it are littered with rocks of all sizes. There have been several muggings on the mountain in the past few weeks, so I was less than thrilled to be traveling down in these conditions. Luckily, our group failed to encounter any of these charming people or run into any rock associated fatalities.
Today a group of us met early in the morning at Newlands Forest to hike Table Mountain. The group was made up of South Africans and then other volunteers from my organization, SAEP. We took the Skeleton Gorge path that departs out of Kirstenbosch Gardens. The trail is quite taxing with numerous stairs and ascends over 730m. The trail climbs through a waterfall, has numerous mossy ladders and many breathtaking views. We passed by two reservoirs (or dams) on the top of the mountain. The hike up was worth all of the pain. The hike down was steep and breathtaking. We hiked down on the Camps bay side of the table and were in the presence of the 12 apostles and the ocean the entire time. The shades of blue are utterly amazing on a sunny day. The ocean and sky differ in intensity and patterns. Each step on the trail led to some new view that no matter how I tried, I was unable to capture the moment with the camera. I wish I could trap the feelings and view that I experienced at each new bend in the pathway with some kind of device. Heloise said it best, she wishes her eye was a camera so she could save the moment just as we see it. Upon completing our decent down the mountain, we walked to Camps Bay and went to Sinnful for ice cream. (I highly recommend the honey comb ice cream) The ice cream shop is right on the beach and has a roof overlooking the ocean. We enjoyed our ice cream while watching the ocean hoping that a flipper or other whale part would emerge from the bright blue waters (we did happen to see a whale before we made it to the ice cream shop and I think many of us were hoping that the whales would reappear). Our trip back was intersting, because we left the cars in Newlands Forest, but were on the other side of the mountain at the end of our hike. Danielle's boyfriend, Thorsten haggled with some taxi drivers, and managed to get us a taxi back to the forest for 130 rand for 11 people. The minibus taxi had red plush seats and the steering wheel was adorned with a garish red cover. The driver sped quickly away to bring us to desired destination. Along the way we saw a girl who had been walking her dog as we headed down into Camps Bay. The dog, after 1.5 hrs or so was completely exhausted, and was sitting in the dirt completely sprawled out. Heloise and Isabel thought he was ugly while I found his shape quite attractive. Our journey ended with our saying good bye to the taxi driver who was flabbergasted when we told him we had hiked from the point he dropped us off to where he had picked us up.
And I only hope for more of these weekends, however, I only have 2 weekends left in Cape Town... so I must come back soon to complete all of the hikes that my legs have not yet carried me; new and revisited spots of joy in Cape Town.