Majestic Table Mountain

Table mountain has been named as one of the seven wonders of the world!! If you look at it’s majestic beauty it is easy to see why. I’m truly fortunate to have a view of it every day. My husband and I have walked up through the gorge and being on top is absolutely amazing. It is a stop that anyone visiting South Africa should undoubtedly make.

Table Mountain is believed to be one of the oldest mountains in the world and has over 1,500 species of plants, more than the entire United Kingdom.

A well known Dutch legend about the cloud over the mountain is the legend of Jan Van Hunks and his passion for smoking. Van Hunks lived in a house at the foot of the mountain that we today call Devil’s Peak, and his favorite activity was smoking. Every day he would sit on the slopes of Devil’s Peak, smoking his pipe for hours. One day, a stranger came up to him, they both were bragging about how much they could smoke, and they agreed to have a smoke contest. As a passionate smoker, Van Hunks was sure that he would have no problem beating the stranger, little did he know that the stranger was the devil himself.

They proceeded to place a huge pile of tobacco in between them, and started to smoke. They were soon surrounded by smoke, and the cloud grew bigger and bigger until it covered the entire Table Mountain. Van Hunks had started to fear that he would actually loose the battle when he finally saw the stranger giving up. The man was too sick to continue, he leaned forward and the hat fell of his head. And that was when Van Hunks could see who it truly was. He had just beat the Devil in a smoking contest!

The devil was not at all pleased and being a bad looser, he clapped his hands and they both disappeared forever. But the smoke is still there to this day, a huge cloud on top of the Table Mountain, appropriately named the Table Cloth. And the Devil’s Peak was named after the stranger who lost a smoking contest on the mountain’s slopes

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