On top of the world

Today was the epitome of an early autumn day in Cape Town. Light breeze from the Antarctic to keep us cool, ice clouds overhead to fool us into thinking rain is on the way, and a vast expanse of mountain to climb to rejuvenate the soul.
We set off from Silvermine Dam parking area en route to the Noordhoek Peak bench according to Google Maps (more about that later). This is another walk that I have not yet had the pleasure of undertaking, and I knew that hard times were ahead as we were going to a height of 680m (the parking lot is at about 400m which did help, and the gradient was steep. I huffed and puffed all the way up, with frequent stops to admire the view, photograph a flower and swig my electrolytes, and it was gratifying to be the recipient of the concern of fellow hikers who were all somewhat older than me. I must have looked exhausted. In all fairness, the previous day I probably lost a kilogram due to the dreaded lurgy, so perhaps I was feeling a bit weak. However, very little will get in the way of my hikes and, having established that there was no necessity to carry a spade with me, I got up and showed up.
And how worthwhile the effort was! The jeep track eventually evens out into a very comfortable stone paved pathway - a wonderful bit of construction work from way back - and after about an hour and a half, we descended slightly on the other side of the mountain, just below the mast on Constantiaberg and suddenly! - we had come to the edge of the world and below us lay a magical bay with a little harbour, a crescent-shaped white beach and a white-sailed yacht cruising quietly by. If one pretends all the housing developments and scarred mountains are still in their pristine original state, one can see the paradise it must once have been.
The cliff fell away steeply at our feet, down, down to the winding contours of Chapman's Peak Drive far below. A young man suddenly appeared from a gully - he had come straight up from below; not a route I would choose, but he looked extremely fit and was not even sweating! He went on his way, and we spent a pleasant half hour drinking coffee and admiring the view. Regarding the reference to Noordhoek Peak bench - there were some burnt stumps of poles in the undergrowth, so presumably it succumbed to one of the last devastating fires in the area. There were seats aplenty provided by the quaintly weathered monkey rocks, and even two rock pools filled with water, which can only have been filled by the cloud cover overnight. No wonder the mountains remain so green!
It was our Intrepid Leader's intention to take a different route back across the Noordhoek ridge and down the back of the dam. That would have taken another 2 hours, so perhaps in winter!