Cape Town 31/12/25
To say I was a tad anxious about the afternoon’s activity would be an understatement.
I’ve always been shit scared of heights. Not flying, but just situations where I’m not attached to something solid and imagining a slow and painful death if I let go.
The cable car to Table Mountain holds sixty five people at a time. Our guide Amber was brilliant and already had prepared fast track tickets so it was only a ten minute wait. Regular tickets have up to three hours wait. Fast track tickets cost twice as much but are worth it, approx. AUD$100 return.
I was under the assumption the cable car rotated 360 degrees. It does, but it’s the floor that rotates. You can do a full rotation in the five minutes it takes to reach the summit.
All I was thinking was, “hang onto the handle bar in front of you and look down at your feet”.
I felt myself moving not knowing it was the floor and two Spanish women who were jostling for photo positions, came crashing into me. I just thought they were rude so I summoned up what core strength I had left and didn’t budge, clinging manfully to the handle bar.
Both of them careered into me and squashed each other which I found quite amusing, but then they screeched profanity in Spanish at me extremely fast and loud. I looked down and realised the floor was moving, then quietly drifted off to look at my feet elsewhere.
In 1984 a few skydiving mates took me to Byron Bay to throw me out of a perfectly serviceable Cessna. If it wasn’t for the cargo strap connected to the fuselage that pulled my chute out, I was dead because I had forgotten every piece of instruction. That was 3000 feet. This was 3700 feet and it felt every inch as we stepped onto terra firma.
The view as you can imagine has no words, just expletives.
We were blessed to have Amber as a guide. She reminded us of Ash Barty but in her mid -twenties. A high achiever, Amber has an honours degree, is a violinist, conservationist, an educator and talented rock climber chasing challenges throughout Africa and Europe.
This is Amber and Lynda at the highest point of the mountain and a memorial placed in 1840.
That spot was where we had a break after approximately an hour’s walking over pretty easy, rocky terrain albeit uneven.
On the way back Amber took us through a scrubby short cut to the edge of the mountain for some more photos.
She clearly had sussed me out with my fear of heights and seeing that I was fairly relaxed and chatty she decided to put my fear to the test.
She was spot on, because as long as I was at least three or four metres back from the edge I was able to take it all in and commit the incredible views to my memory forever.
Without doubt one the greatest days of my life and I’m sure Lynda concurs. Last day in Cape Town today. A day long drive along much of the beautiful coastline we could see from above yesterday. Happy New Year.
