I'M 8 HOURS AHEAD

If you’ve been reading my blog for some time, you know I enjoy hiking quite a lot. Since I first came to Cape Town I had been seeing posts about people finding Wally’s cave, so one day after reading through a selection of blogs with detailed information, we decided to meet at the parking at 5:15am and start our ascent to the cave before sunrise.

There are two possible ways to get there, and we used one path on the way up and the other on the way down, so I’ll be explaining both.

HIKE UP WALLY’S CAVE

Full hiking route

The path starts on the Lion’s Head trail. You go up on the same path until you find the first metal stairs (that you have to climb). There, instead of climbing up, you have to continue to the left of the stairs. Yo will see a small fence that you have to round and after few steps the little path that you have to follow will appear in front of you. You will continue for some time on that path until you see a wooden bench on your right. It is a little bit covered in plants, but you can see it if paying attention to that side. It could take about 10 or 15 minutes to reach it (time is approximate and it depends on the walking speed).

After that, you will soon see two different paths, one goes to the right and one to the left. If you take the right one, you will continue until the path ends, and you will find yourself in the top of the cave, there is no way you can climb down unless you actually know a lot about climbing and have gear with you. Because we hiked for the first time and it was dark, we didn’t see the path to the left and found ourselves at the top of the cave. Luckily it is not a long path either way from the bench, so we went back until we found the path to the left and followed that one. After a rocky corner you can see the cave up on the right hand side and after some light rock climbing you will arrive at Wally’s cave.

Views from Wally’s cave

The cave is actually quite small, but you can take pictures from the back of it so that you can fit the whole silhouette of Table Mountain in your frame. Having a macro lens will help too.

Sun rising from Wally’s Cave

We got there when it was still dark. Had the opportunity to see the sunrise illuminating table mountain (right in front of the cave). When the sun was up we went around the rocky corner to admire the city of Cape Town.

It was magnificent and the four of us totally enjoyed the views and the experience. The hike is not long at all, it is easy and the views are more than worth it!

After that on our way down from Wally’s cave we took the second possible path down to the parking lot. It is very easy to see with daylight, there’s a path running pretty steep down the mountain. We only had to follow it until the starting of the trail. The path leads to about 6 stairs that take you back to the start of Lion’s Head trail. If you want to take that path on your way up, please consider this carefully as it is steeper.

The blogs I checked out recommended to not do the hike with a dog. I have a small mix breed dog considered small to medium, and he would have loved the hike. It is true that parts of the path are tricky because there is not much space to walk, but small and medium dogs can do it. My opinion is that you can bring your dog to Wally’s cave if it’s not a very big one.

 

Have you ever done a sunrise mission to Wally’s cave? Don’t you agree the best views are when the sun is rising or setting from the summit of a mountain?