Day 16

Day 16.

Firstly, apologies for the late post.. Berghof are having trouble with the wifi and I don't really take my phone out unless I need to!

Day 16 was definitely one to remember!!!

We were picked up by Azile, her boyfriend Ernie and his sister Tasha at 8:00! It was time to climb table mountain! Jeff and I were so buzzing, it was something we had both wanted to do and today it would be finally ticked off our "to do" list.

We arrived at table mountain at about quarter past, it's an easy short drive but you can't realistically walk there in my opinion. We started at the starting point which is a couple hundred metres up, as I don't think you can start at sea level. It took us two hours to hike up the mountain and get through the gauge which is a gap in between the mountain which is pretty much the point which people think is the highest. However, we decided to go to the actual top of table mountain, the highest point! That takes an additional 45 minutes which jeff and I really didn't care about! How often do you get to climb a mountain in Enfield or Hammersmith!? Jeff got some fantastic photos (as did I) but I will post them later!

We headed back down at about 11:45 I'd say. The way down was a bit more dangerous to be honest! Gradually overtime the rocks have become smoothened and are actually quite slippy! Even though I had running trainers on.. my grip would often fail me. No worries though! Azile told me a good technique of going down sideways! Her technique never failed and the hike down became a picturesque, very tiring, descent! As I've previously wrote in my posts, I am often nicknamed dangerous Brian in my family so I was constantly thinking it wouldn't be a surprise if I missed a rock and just went tumbling down the mountain to my death! We saw Eric and Anna, the two Americans we saw at grassroots soccer! What a coincidence! Despite giving us their numbers.. We hadn't contacted them. This wasn't necessarily through choice, Jeff and I just had a manic week and didn't have any minutes on our little Nokia. But we agreed to play football with them tomorrow at 3:00 near the World Cup stadium so that should be fun!
Eventually after 2 and a bit hours, we had arrived at the bottom of Table Mountain! Your ankles and knees take a bit of a battering coming down so to be walking on flat ground was surprisingly soothing. We made it though, that's the main thing! Such a cool experience, Lions head next!!

We headed for a couple beers at a bar after our hike for a little celebratory drink! After, Azile drove us home to berghof! We thanked them all so much for taking us out, such a great experience and something I'll look back on for many years to come. Getting to the highest point and looking down on Cape Town is a crazy feeling, it feels like your on top of the world!

We collapsed on our beds through exhaustion! I had a little siesta for around an hour but Jeff was dead to the world! I headed down to the wifi and then realised it wasn't working.. Idiot! So I came back listened to some music and read my book! Can't complain.

 The couple beers we had earlier really had us in a mood to go out!! So jeff and I had our showers and then got ready! My hairs pretty long now, but I managed to carve out a quiff thankfully! If you haven't seen my hair without hair clay in it.. It is TRAGIC! We headed to a few bars and clubs and i can honesty say it was one of the best nights I've had in the last few months! We went to a reggae bar which was so funny, had such an awesome time! We met a few interesting people who were keen to take the pee out of our London accent but it was good to have a few drinks and walk around as a group rather than just two of us! Sensible heads were on! Being the man of steel that I am, I can handle my drink quite well but Jeff on the other hand was starting to go! So like I said it was good to be in a group! Long street is the place to be on weekends.. That's for sure! We went to a over 21's bar to try our luck and we got in! Good ol' Cape Town.. Full of surprises!! Don't get me wrong I miss going out with people like Matt,Robert,Laurence and of course Gavin! But I'm sure they're having a good time without me anyway, a big night out is on the cards when we get back!

Such a good 16 hours!

All the best,

Luke.