Most people hike only the Lion’s Head summit trail, especially leisure tourists.

As for Table Mountain, many take the cable car to the summit. Those who hike up choose the popular Skeleton Gorge route that starts at Kirstenbosch Gardens.

And Devil’s Peak is ignored.

But having traveled 20 hours to Cape Town from Singapore, I might as well just complete all the 3 summit hiked and fulfill the Cape Town 3 Peaks Challenge!

I tried to book an Uber ride from the Lion’s Head trail to the Devil’s Peak trail. Devil’s Peak is so highly unpopular and undocumented that I couldn’t book this trip as the Uber maps shows some crazy roundabout route.

From information online, the Devil’s Peak trail is supposed to start at Tafelberg Road. There’s no way to book an Uber ride to there (as of today). So I booked the ride to end at the lower cable car station also located on Tafelberg Road and reasonably close to the Devil’s Peak trail location marker in Google maps.

Very fortunately, the uber driver was an experienced one and knew to alight me at the start of Platteklip Gorge to begin my Devil’s Peak summit hike.

When he stopped the car, he helped to edit the uber route to display accurately.

Who’s to know that the Devil’s Peak trail starts here? There’s nowhere that states Devil’s Peak. This route is a Table Mountain peak route!

Asking a random stranger, I realized that I was indeed supposed to start here and then fork left away from the usual Table Mountain trail later.

I followed his instructions: fork left twice.

Arriving at the first fork, I see this.

I turned left because he said to turn left. Still no sign of “Devil’s Peak” as assurance that I was on the correct path. Also, I knew the routes to the right definitely lead to Table Mountain because I had read up on those. So left seemed logical.

But if I hadn’t asked the stranger and hadn’t read up on table mountain routes, I would have been hopelessly lost and most probably abandoned the mission.

Arriving at the second fork, I finally see “Devil’s Peak”.

Huge sigh of relief.

This sign is also there at the same place.

So I start on the contour path. It’s relatively gentle so that meant long.

The trail alternates between gentle upward slopes and short flights of steep steps.

I come to a cool shade that looks like a rock formation.

How pretty!

Climbing Devil’s Peak, you have to keep your eyes wide open to watch out for these markers.

To constantly reassure yourself that you’re on the correct path. It’s not like Lion’s Head trail in which you can just blindly follow the crowd.

The trail becomes steeper after the cool rock formation.

Next marker.

The flora of the Devil’s Peak trail is the prettiest of all the 3 summit routes. It has to be, otherwise nobody would hike it at all.

Color change!

Where the brown route ends, the white route starts. The white road is horribly windy and I hate the wind!

Always happy to see a marker.

And another.

Pretty flowers to admire is the sole redeeming point of this yucky trail.

But nothing beats the beauty of the next marker which is the 50% mark.

Proper scrambling and incredibly steep steps from here all the way to the summit.

Some wooden logs.

Have to note all these small details to recognize the correct path down later!

This is known as the saddle.

Ok finally I arrived at the summit of Devil’s Peak and the wind is so strong I have no doubt it can blow me entirely off the mountain.

But I still climb to the top to touch this thingy.

So misty I can’t see anything.

I clung on to this pole thing to keep grounded as I made a 360 degree video.

Ok it was quickly time to go down as I hated it up there.

A scenic photo on the way down.

I remember this fence on the way up. Good. That meant I was going the correct way down.

Look at the speed of the clouds moving. The wind is no joke! Horrible, horrible!

Final scenic photo.

End of trail and I book an Uber back to stayeasy.

Mission accomplished!

Cape Town 3 peaks challenge.

😁😆👍🏻

The Lion’s Head summit hiking trail is a popular tourist activity. It appears in Uber and Google Maps when you type “Lion’s Head hike”. It was easy to get to the start of the trail from my hotel.

The driver commented that I was late for the hike because people usually start early morning around 6-7am.

Upon alighting, I was relieved to see that the Lion’s Head trail had a proper sign board.

Here I start my solo hike. Since I had already completed my Table Mountain hike with Johan, this Lion’s Head summit would be the second checkpoint of the Cape Town 3 peaks challenge of Table Mountain, Lion’s Head and Devil’s Peak.

The Lion’s Head trail begins with a slope.

It soon becomes steps.

Then something fun appears. A ladder!

At both sides of the ladder, people were queuing to climb up or down. Some guy tried to take charge of the situation by ordering that we take turns – 5 people up and then 5 people down. Nobody bothered about him.

The view is nothing spectacular. What the internet says about the magnificent views of the Lion’s Head trail is exaggerated.

I saw Signal Hill and Robben Island, both of which weren’t exceptionally fantastic.

There’s a part of the trail which is a narrow route with a chain provided at the mountain’s side, which other posts on the internet make out to be really thrilling. It’s not. The path is wide enough to not require the chain.

After the ladder, we meet some high steps again.

Then we reach a fork where we choose to continue the ascend by staples or alternative.

Obviously we would all chose the staples! Hence long queue.

The final leg of the trail. Almost reaching the summit!

I reached the top of Lion’s Head!

There’s a big stone. I climb to the top of it to be truly at the top of Lion’s Head.

The best scenery is at the top. The rest can be ignored.

At Table Mountain, we didn’t get to see the Dassie. I saw it this time!

Apparently it’s the closest living relative of the African elephant. Any resemblance evades my observation.

This thingy appears in almost all Lion’s Head trail posts on the internet. It’s probably just a summit marking and photo prop without any real function.

So I just follow the crowd blindly and take photo with it.

On the way down, I get some cheap thrills telling random strangers that they have more to go than is real.

Heard a lady at 90% complain that her legs were like jelly. I encouraged / scared the wits out or her by proclaiming that she was already 50% up.

Time taken to to reach the summit was slightly less that 60 min and this includes queue time and photo type.

Downhill was another 60 min because the queue was crazy. People heading up are impatient to reach the summit. They hog the ladders and people descending have no chance.

Everybody we asked says the scenery at the Cape Winelands (Stellenbosch and Franschhouk) is absolutely stunning.

Tour operators do day tours at R1,050-1,300/pax for Stellenbosch + Franschhouk + Paarl.

City Sightseeing (the hop on hop off open top bus company) does Stellenbosch + Franschhouk without Paarl at R600/pax.

Of course we joined the R600 one!

There are several pick up points in Cape Town City Center. The nearest to us is the one at Long Street, at the corner of Greenmarket Square. Pick up time is at 8.30am.

The open top bus picks tourists up at 3-4 pick up points around Cape Town City Center, then finally stops at V&A Waterfront where the passengers change to another better bus to travel to the Cape Winelands.

There’s Wi-Fi, USB charging port and restroom in the bus. Seats are bigger and cushioned. Similar to the overland buses from Singapore to Malaysia.

First stop, Blouberg Beach for “post card view of Table Mountain”. After our magnificent Kloof Corner Ridge climb up Table Mountain yesterday and its spectacular views, this view from Table Mountain is like a photograph taken with a scratched old camera lens.

Next stop, wine tasting session at Backsberg winery at Paarl. Hmm I thought Paarl wasn’t included.

It was extremely rushed. There was a welcome drink of bubbly (champagne?), followed by an introduction to the winery and its wines, then the wine tasting session.

The winery’s inhouse guide / salesman. In my opinion, not a good guide and not a good salesman. Totally forgettable.

The 3 types of wines we tasted.

The setting is classy. Long table in a wine cellar.

Look at the huge barrels. They’re made individually, so every barrel has a different capacity.

The capacity of this particular one is 5,882 litres.

Each wine bottle holds 750ml, so this barrel fills 7,840 bottles.

Trivia: a wine bottle is 750ml because in the old days when wine bottles were made by glass blowers, that was the maximum lung capacity of an average worker. One blow to make one bottle. Maximize efficiency.

Anyway, this is the price list.

So if I use the lowest price point of USD 15, I have USD 117,600 worth of wine in one barrel. There were 24 barrels in the room we were in. That’s USD 2,800,000 wow!

Ok that was digression.

The drinks from left to right: white (Viognier), red (Shiraz), brandy.

The pairings from left to right, all coated with milk chocolate (yuck): dried ginger (paired with the red), dried fig (paired with the white), dried orange (paired with the brandy).

Brandy is to be held with the palm so that the body warmth can bring out the taste of the drink. A contrast to wine that is held by the stem of the glass.

Also, to preserve its strength, no swirling of brandy. Whereas wine is best swirled so that the smell comes out.

To properly appreciate the brandy, hold it in your month for a full 10 seconds.

I found the wines ok and the brandy way too strong. Then we were herded out of the cellar to board the bus to the next location to keep up with schedule.

On the way back to the bus, I overheard a comment from another tourist that he found the session to be commercialized. Haha!

City sightseeing must be being paid per head to bring the people for the tasting sessions. It didn’t seem like anyone was particularly interested in wine sales. Rather just do the tasting session and get it over with.

Random flowers at Backsberg winery.

Then we go to Franschhouk.

The scenery from the bus window is pretty.

We have 2 hours free and easy time at Franschhouk. It’s a small quaint town, just a place to chill out the whole day at a cafe with a coffee and book. Something like Colmar Tropicale. Too fake.

This restaurant’s owner / manager deserves praise for his optimism and creativity.

In secondary 2, Mrs Bernadette Peh taught us about the kung bushmen who live in the Kalahari Desert.

🤣

Biltong means organic dried fruits and nuts. Clean ones. Unlike those on supermarket shelves, loaded with sugar and preservatives.

Random flowers again because there isn’t much else.

Next, we go to Stellenbosch.

The bus just drove through. -.-

On the road again.

Strawberry field. Mostly harvested for export. We see strawberries from South Africa sold at our supermarkets, don’t we. But we prefer the South Korean ones.

Random electricity generator.

Yes there’s really nothing else.

Egyptian geese.

We alight at our final stop of the tour, Vergenoegd Low winery at Stellenbosch.

Finally I get to see the vines up close.

There’s a quick, obligatory introduction to the winery.

Wine making season is in Feb-Mar. Nothing much to see now.

The harvested grapes are made into wine here.

Then stored for approx 12 months here.

Then bottled here.

A Duck Parade is held at the backyard. watching a bunch of ducks running seems an irrelevant and unnecessary item in the itinerary but there’s a reason for it that should have been explained by the tour guide in the bus commentary.

Vergenoegd Low winery carries a special series of wines.

Grapes used to make the wines in this Runner Duck range are farmed using these runner ducks instead of pesticides to rid pests to be sustainable and environmentally friendly.

These ducks have high standing in the winery ok.

They stay here, at the front of Vergenoegd Low winery.

Wine tasting session is 5 types of wine, paired with 3 types of cheeses.

As usual, I hate Rose and only like Shiraz.

Back to V&A Waterfront by 5pm.