Pretend Happy Birthday to Mark

---

Oh what a beautiful morning

We had decided that we would celebrate Mark’s birthday today, instead of tomorrow when we would be spending most of the day on airplanes and in airports making our way to Kenya.

The day started with brilliant sunshine - yes! Annabel even sat outside on the patio to eat her breakfast it was that warm. After Mark had been sung Happy Birthday and had opened his presents we set out, once again, for Table Mountain. Unfortunately by this time the brilliant sunshine was hiding behind a fair amount of white clouds, but this was going to be our last opportunity to make it to the top, and we weren’t going to be deterred by a few clouds.

We arrived at the cable car station to find it open and the cable cars running, so we purchased tickets and the audio/visual tour guide without further ado and hopped aboard the rotating car to climb up the mountain. Well the higher we got, the cloudier it got until we couldn’t see the lower cable car station let alone Cape Town. The cable car arrived at the upper station and we stepped out into a freezing cold mist. Ellie and Jack had wanted to know ‘what a cloud felt like’ so they found out first hand - freezing and drippy! It was a little bit surreal to wander around the flat summit of a mountain, with really poor visibility, reading signs about the view when all you could see were drops to all sides plummeting into a sea of grey nothingness. Still, we had the wildlife to keep us company - a very familiar rock hyrax (dassie) was chewing a bush and pointedly ignoring our presence, and we were interrogated in turn by a Brown Striped Mouse (which is both its species name and description). When we felt we’d absorbed enough moisture, we took the cable car back down and found that it had been shut for any more trips due to the wind, so we’d made it just in time!

We parked the car back at the apartment and popped in to read the Lonely Planet guide to get suggestions for where we could have a suitable lunch for celebrating Mark’s birthday. We came up with a couple of options; the first of which seemed not to exist anymore. Our second option The Baia was at Quay 6 of the V&A (with a good view of the currently obscured Table Mountain) and provided us very nicely with a celebratory meal. We even managed to beat our previous most expensive meal (700 RAND/£50) as the three courses each plus wine plus drinks cost us 1400 RAND - but well worth it. Mozambiquan Curried Prawns, Scallops and Abalone, Kingclip and Crayfish tails to name but a few of the delights we savoured. Mark was extremely happy with the way his pseudo birthday day was going. Unfortunately this is around about where the excitement stops though as because our apartment was in the midst of a planned power cut we had to return and pack before it got dark, ready for our early morning departure. Half way through the packing the power came back on, but we finished up, ate a quick sarnie for tea and retired early (8.30pm) for bed as our wake-up call for the following morning was set to 3.30am!

---

Photos

Floating in the clouds
What a fantastic view from the cable car

Hyrax or Dassie
munching leaves at the top of table mountain