Cape Town with Kids: Climbing Up Table Mountain with a 5 year old.

Table Mountain is the icon of Cape Town. It looms above the city and can be seen from every direction, but in fact it isn’t very high and can be climbed in about two hours.

On top of the world – hiking Table Mountain

We went up the Mountain on day 3. We were dropped off at the foot of Platteklip Gorge and the guard at the beginning of the hike gave us his cell number if we had any trouble. We were very impressed by this – the boys are good hikers but we knew that if we had any trouble we would be well looked after. The Gorge is basically a staircase leading through a crack in the mountain to the top – the least challenging route but the best one to do with kids.

After our first rainy and cold day, the weather had turned very warm and it was about 25 degrees celsius. We were not alone. Ozzies and Kiwis, Italians and French – the trail was very busy with supporters from all over the world. The boys did great – Daniel is an excellent hiker, and while Eitan complained for most of the second hour, we made it up to the top easily. we then spent time walking along the top of the mountain, looking at the incredible views and searching for dassies (rock rabbits). Eventually it was time to go down and we decided to use the cable car. I was totally amazed that the one way down ticket was more expensive than the return – we paid more for the privilege of climbing up – unbelievable. Biting the bullet, it took us about 5 minutes to get down the mountain and then we jumped into a shared taxi going via Kloof Street to Downtown.