WESTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA

Justin Hawthorne

The beginning of summer in Cape Town was jam-packed with mountain guiding and evenings cooling off at the beach, together with afternoons sipping on delicious Constantia wines. Christmas and New Years festivities with with family and friends complete the classic end of the year atmosphere!

Kicking the month off had us on a spontaneous walk on Lion’s Head at sunset. It was warm and extremely busy, so we altered the plan of summiting for sunset and rather opted to enjoy the last 45 min of light overlooking Clifton from the mid-slopes. The light was amazing as we hiked up from the kramat through the young vegetation. We picnicked on the granite boulders with ciabatta and cheese, ended off with shortbread, dark chocolate and coffee.

Rooibos tea on Table Mountain.

A micro project of mine is observing the regeneration of the #12ApostlesFire month on month, noting what comes into flower and taking note of animal movements. I was up on the central apostles in mid-December on one of those days which had you layering up in the wind, and stripping down the layers whenever you felt the intensity of the heat. I took up my personalized flask with hot water for a couple cups of rooibos tea, as well as my flask of coffee. A late stop in at Tranquility Cracks then saw me cruise down Corridor Ravine for a gentle return to Camp’s Bay at sunset, just as the AMS helicopter was busy rescuing hikers from the Diagonal Route.

We had a number of amazing sunrises and this one was particularly captivating! On many occasions you plan for a sunrise hike or to be up and active to watch the start of the day and things don’t quite work out with dense cloud preventing any color or light. Other times you just get surprised and rewarded for being up and about at 05:00 am!

I stopped off at Chapman’s Peak Drive on a very windy day in Cape Town with Kirsty & Darian and what a good decision that was! Incredible light and cloud prior to sunset made for amazing photos, and one of the prettiest scenes of all 2017.

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