Monday, 18 August 2014

Lion’s Head and other fabulous mountains for (not only) hiking lovers

As I have already written in the first article, South Africa offers beautiful nature. Every province is different; let’s thus speak about the region where I currently stay and which I have already could discover a bit.

Around Stellenbosch you see mountains everywhere – if you have nothing to do, the best way how to occupy your day is going for a hike with your friends. And even if you have only few hours free on Monday before your class, you can go for a short hike to the closest mountain – that close it is. That’s why I have already been three times on this mountain called Stellenbosch Mountain but not on others that are located a bit further. And it is also a good place for running if you find the flat land too boring. I have to say that Stellenbosch is really well situated because although the mountains are everywhere around, the town is on more or less flat land so going to the campus by bike is pretty easy.



Furthermore, Cape Town is quite close to Stellenbosch – it is about 50km, about one hour drive. There are several peaks in this city – Table Mountain and Lion’s Head belong among the most well-known.

Last Saturday, we decided with a group of friends to hike Lion’s Head. One German friend has just bought a great car that can hold up to nine or ten people so we arrived by car up to the foot of the mountain where we began our hike.



The top of the Lion’s Head is a favourite place for watching the sunset. And that’s we had planned as well. We brought some food so as we could do a picnic on the top while watching the sunset. And the hike was definitely worth it. When we successfully climbed up to the top, we could see the sea of clouds (on the place where normally is supposed to be normal sea). Watching the sun going down and enjoying our picnic, we didn’t see the time passing. And suddenly the sunset was there. Actually, we spent more than one hour like this but it seemed to be only ten minutes.





The top of the Lion’s Head was quite crowded – it is not that vast and because it was only a day before the Full Moon and weather was very nice, the Lion’s Head attracted lot of visitors.

And then it was the time to go down … at nigh … only under the moon light. The most difficult part of the trip. You have to be careful because some parts of the path are not very easy to overcome if it’s dark but if you take your time, it is not that difficult as it had first seemed to be.



Even people who are not really nature and hiking lovers fall in love with the landscapes of the Western Cape.

The Table Mountain is next on our hiking schedule!


  


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