13 Peaks and Segment 13: Devil’s Peak to the Finish…

The irony that I am writing a post about Devil’s Peak, the week of the most terrible fires out there, is not lost on me. We hiked this hike a week or two before the fire, and what was once green will now be dark and ashen… it will recover in time, but it was horrific to watch this burn, not to mention all the people of Cape Town that suffered terribly on account of the fire. This was the last peak on our Thirteen Peak Adventure, and once we had climbed it, we couldn’t resist pushing it and finishing the journey completely.

Getting to the Start of Newlands Ravine

When we finished our previous hike, we finished at the bottom of Newlands Ravine… and then popped off the route at Newlands forest. And so this hike, we re-entered at Newlands forest long before dawn. At this stage we had learned to love an early start…

The surprising thing was the number of people that are roaming about in the forest in the pre-dawn…

It was lovely and magical to be under the canopy as the sun came up.

I wasn’t the only one who was loving it…

Others were more than a little ready for breakfast…

And there is even a breakfast spot… at the base of the ravine…

Newlands Ravine… What a Beauty

Another beautiful part of Table Mountain, where I have never hiked before. 13 Peaks, once again taking us places we have never been before, which is crazy. I grew up under Nursery Ravine, but had always heard that it was a tricky hike. It is not difficult, you follow the path and head up. It is up and up and up, make no mistake, but totally totally worth it. It is lovely in fact.

And we were off…

There are little sparks of joy…

And beauty wherever you look…

It is up and up…

And totally worth it, the views are spectacular…

The proteas outstanding…

And did I say the views spectacular…

Devil’s Peak was Wild And Stormy

And from the top of Nursery… where we stopprd to refuel, there is a little down hill, followed bu this march up… and when you get to that kink at the top left… there is a lovely view point and, ho hum, receding skyline… you are about halfway up.

It was incredibly windy, but we were all still of good cheer…

And then we got to the viewpoint…

And the weather turned nasty… it was freezing, it was gale force and folk were dashing off the mountain at speed… but we had come this far…

The clouds were swirling round, we were soaked through and blown off our feet…

But we made it…

All of us…

Down and Out…

Below the clouds and the weather started to improve quickly…

Still windy…

But we marching out…

We made it… tired. It was enough!!!

Just One More Step…

We planned to come back and do the last 8km on the road and finish the next day… but we were so close. At this stage it is only about 8km to the finish. We decided to use the very definite mental ploy to get to the finish… one little segment at the time. We decided to just try and get to the base of Platteklip…