#Table Mountain Three Tenners South Africa PT 15

TABLE MOUNTAIN

We are three brothers. Our darling late parents passed away too early quite a few years ago now. We are each blessed with fantastic children – young adults and in my case I have two beautiful granddaughters. I am the eldest brother – Mike the youngest and that makes Rob of course in the middle.

Almost six years ago to the day Rob was diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia. The doctors told Rob his odds were poor – 20% chance of survival. Terrible. He went through a frightening, horrible time but fought a quiet, dogged battle - positive but realistic. He had maximum chemotherapy and suffered all the misery of that. Eventually he had a bone marrow transplant and I was privileged to be Rob’s bone marrow donor. He spent several months in isolation recovering.

Today we three brothers stood on top of Table Mountain together on 2^nd April – Rob’s 60^th birthday – a birthday he might never have seen. A proud and emotional moment for all of us and for our families who we knew would be sharing it. Thoughts of our always loving and giving mum and dad and how proud they would be were massive in my mind. Fantastic and amazing achievement for Rob. We are so very proud of him. He has done it in his own way with the support of his 2 daughters (who he is so proud of) and wife Kay and of course everyone else - family, friends and colleagues. A brilliant fight and he deserves everything he has. Here it is to you bruv. Mike and I in (near) tears - ha!

We hiked up from near the bottom cable car station to take the Platteklip Gorge route. This was a good test both in terms of stamina and willpower. Just under 2 hours of ascent to over 1000 metres. A steady “poly poly” plod got us there to be faced with cloud, poor visibility and no discernible top point. (it is a table top after all).

For some reason and despite the fact thousands have climbed Table Mountain the guide books lack clarity. We arrived somewhere towards the middle of the table. It made sense to go down by cable car because the descent would otherwise be a pain on the knees and time consuming given the plan was to have a birthday celebration with Rob on the V&A Waterfront later. So we turned to the right, Visibility was poor and we had a sense of “is this it?” – in some ways a bit of an anti-climax. It was made worse by an increasing number of sightseers who had come all the way up by cable car.

Thankfully Mike pointed out there was a top – nominal true – but called Maclears Beacon and at 1083m the highest point. It was a 45 minute hike to it at the far end of the Table (the other end). Mike made a compelling case to go to it despite reservations about the weather. One thing that can throw hikers plans is the regular closing of the cable car because of adverse winds.

Anyway what a positive decision it turned out to be. A brilliant outcome. We were the only ones there when we arrived. Few people made the effort. A superb cairn top and Maclear's Beacon and most luckily of all the weather started to clear and the views opened up. We took lots of silly photos of ourselves – the mountain conquerors – but seriously there were some very emotional moments included a heartfelt group hug between us daft brothers. It was very meaningful – great stuff.

Thereafter the day was wonderful. We strode back elated and totally fulfilled. Table Mountain had turned out to be everything we hoped it would be.

Eventually a beer in the excellent café by the cable car station and then rapidly down for a hedonistic rest of the day.

Again we were so lucky. Fantastic. Thank you.