After several days of substantial rainfall, Table Mountain was looking her fresh-faced best. Slightly less so but chirpy nonetheless, a baker’s dozen of us set off to do as much of our planned route as the soggy conditions would allow.
We hiked up Blind Gully. Some honed their ‘salmon hiking’ skills up the watercourse, while the more sensible majority opted for the adjacent footpath.
On reaching Blinkwater Needle, we paused for tea, giving Mother Nature a chance to reconsider her uncooperative response to the incantations of Jenny, our cloud whisperer. Alas, it got only nippier, so most of the party proceeded to climb the Needle. We made sure to thread the Needle by worming up the chimney and underneath the chock block.
Arguably, the most spectacular part of the route was the traverse from the neck at Blinkwater Needle to the top of the mountain, along Porcupine Buttress. (Or Blinkwater Face, if Peter Slingsby is to be believed.) It’s one of those routes that look impossible when viewed from a distance. Looking back, Julie spotted a Verreaux’s Eagle sitting on Blinkwater Needle, where we had just been. (I guess some of us will always think of it as a Black Eagle.) Charmaine was quick enough to capture it as it flew off, with Jenny’s commentary in the background (video).
At the top, we doubled back to visit Blinkwater Peak, at 989 m the highest point of the Twelve Apostles range.
While at the Needle, we could hear and see the water gushing down Blinkwater Ravine. Sticking to our original plan would have been very wet and potentially slippery and unsafe. We’ll have to do the route again on a drier day. Going down Kasteelspoort would have been sad, so we opted to descend via Diagonal. This proved to be an enjoyable and chatty affair, which included a lunch break. We were back at the start in just under six hours.
If you joined us, you could have picked up snippets of conversation on the following topics:
- ‘Rock inspector’ – overheard from a few bodies back – which didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the discussion, until one realised it was ‘Brocken Spectre’.
- The importance of tradition.
- The fact that no amount of ELEvation (gain) can cause the exhaustion of (property) RENOvation.
- The pros and cons of having grandpuppies rather than grandchildren.
- There was some debate as to whether Blinkwater Muffin or Blinkwater Cupcake would not be more appropriate names. However, because of the ‘threading the needle’ tradition, it was felt that the Blinkwater Needle name should stay.
PS: We were treated to the culinary skills of both Alex (Kourabiedes – Greek shortbread) and Mariella (Amaretti – Italian biscuits). Both were delicious, and both had almonds as crux ingredient. What are the odds?
Picture credits: Charmaine Kritzinger, Julie Dyer, Margaret Möller, Robyn Williams, Simon Braun, Sue Walker, Christo Steyn.
