Cape Point - two lighthouses and a beach

At last the Christmas break from hiking is over! Missing three walks is not good for the brain or the legs. Today, believe it or not, we went to Cape Point. Now most people are aware that this is the height of the tourist season and the queues to get in are beyond a joke. Sanparks has not yet seen fit to increase the number of pay booths from two in the last 30 or more years despite millions wanting to get into the reserve. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out what the delays are caused by. However, we start early and so avoided the crowds. I went through the gate at 8 without a car in front of me. Within half an hour a small queue had started to form, and by the time we left at 12 noon, the queue stretched for more than 3 kms down the narrow coastal road from Simon's Town, giving the occupants of the cars plenty of time to overheat, need the toilet, look at the (let's face it) spectacular views, wonder about their next meal, etc. Utter madness.
The last time I climbed to the old lighthouse at Cape Point was in May, and it was the instigator of my hiking hobby. I had to stop so many times to breathe that I couldn't believe I was so unfit. Now I made it with only a few rests, along with everyone else, so at least I can gauge an improvement! As always, the views made all the effort more than worthwhile, and being among the first to go up, it was a pleasure to be there. Far below, a fleet of skiboats was catching snoek in Buffels Bay and a few commercial crayfishermen were in the kelp beds right below the Point. Cloud cover, with rain far out to the south, was most welcome, as a brief taste of the sun was too much to bear. 

 

As usual, the descent did not take us back to where we came from, and we peeled off to the right at the top of the funicular to take the track along the steep cliff winding down to the new lighthouse, built after 60 disastrous years of the first lighthouse being hidden in the mist, resulting in multiple shipwrecks on this notorious coastline. The crowds were starting to build, and the narrow path couldn't take double file. It was a steep descent, meaning a tough climb back up (but why else do we hike?) and it's no wonder these are unmanned lighthouses. Towering cliffs soared above and below, spattered white from centuries of seabirds roosting and nesting in the cracks. Again, well worth the effort to see this ancient geology.

Then it was down to the carpark and off to Diaz Beach and the Cape of Good Hope, which is not Cape Point, but a piece of land jutting out to the south with the next continent being Antarctica. Another fairly steep climb back up, but still an endless stream of tourists and sightseers, many quite inappropriately dressed for such exertion! Very little English was heard, so it seems we are still one of the most popular destinations. Sadly, there was evidence everywhere that visitors have no environmental awareness, and plastic and glass bottles, tin cans and tissues, as well as cigarette butts, littered the edges of the pathways, with pathetic attempts to lay them neatly in lines by way of an apology. Funny that they can carry them full but not empty. Ho hum!

A real treat was the sudden arrival, while we were having our coffee and snacks above the beach, of a female ostrich and her brood, standing about 60cm high at this stage and they came close before Mother collected them and gave them a foraging lesson in the fynbos.

As always, the hikes fill me with a joy for living, despite thinking at the time that demise might be preferable. That soon passes and within minutes the hardship is forgotten and the rest of the day is like riding the crest of a wave! I can recommend it!