Maclear’s Beacon
Maclear’s Beacon is about 35 minutes from the top of the Platteklip Gorge (or about one hour from the Upper Cableway Station), on a path that leads eastward, with markers showing the way. The path crosses the front table with Maclear’s Beacon, the highest point on the mountain (1086m), visible at all times. From the top, you’ll get views of False Bay to the south and the Hottentots Holland Mountains to the east.
Skeleton Gorge
This eastern route (4–5hr) allows you to combine the Kirstenbosch gardens with an ascent of Table Mountain, returning down a different path. From the gardens’ restaurant (just inside the upper entrance; turn right on the way in from Rhodes Drive) follow the Skeleton Gorge signs that lead onto the Contour Path. Here, a plaque indicates that this path forms part of the Smuts Track, the route to Maclear’s Beacon favoured by Jan Smuts. The twentieth-century Boer leader, prime minister and international statesman was known for his love of Table Mountain.
The plaque marks the start of a broad-stepped climb up Skeleton Gorge, involving both wooden and stone steps, wooden ladders and loose boulders. Be prepared for steep forested ravines and the odd rock scramble – and under no circumstances stray off the path. It requires reasonable fitness, and can take about two hours to ascend.
The Skeleton Gorge descent can be unpleasant, especially in the wet season when it gets slippery; a recommended alternative is Nursery Ravine. From the top of Skeleton Gorge, a half-hour walk on the flat leads past the Hely-Hutchinson Reservoir to the head of Nursery Ravine. This descent returns you to the Contour Path, which leads back to Kirstenbosch.
Sacred Circle
During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Dutch exiled a number of Muslim holy men and princes from the East Indies to the Cape, where some became revered as auliyah, or muslim saints. The kramats, of which there are around two dozen in Cape Town and the Winelands, are the auliyah’s burial sites, shrines and places of pilgrimage.
Signal Hill’s kramat is a shrine to Mohamed Gasan Galbie Shah, a follower of Sheik Yusuf, an Indonesian Sufi scholar deported to the Cape in 1694 with a 49-strong retinue. According to tradition, Yusuf conducted Muslim prayer meetings in private homes and slave quarters, becoming South Africa’s founder of Islam. His kramat at Macassar on the Cape Flats is said to be one of a sacred circle of six that protect Cape Town from natural disasters – as are the Signal Hill shrine and Robben Island’s Moturu Kramat. For more on the kramats, visit 
capemazaarsociety.com.
You can also incorporate the plateau-top walk along the Smuts Track to Maclear’s Beacon, which takes about two hours for a return trip from the top of Skeleton Gorge.
Arrival and departure: TABLE MOUNTAIN
By car There’s parking along Tafelberg Rd, but you may be in for a walk to the Lower Cableway Station in peak season – the stretch of parked cars can extend several hundred metres. If you find yourself in this situation after dark, walk back to your car with a friend, fellow motorist or car guard.
By MyCiTi bus 
0800 65 64 63, myciti.org.za. Take bus #106 or #107 (running between the Civic Centre and Camps Bay via Adderley, Long and Kloof Sts and Kloof Nek Rd) and get off at Kloof Nek, which is at the junction of Tafelberg Rd. From here, catch the free #110 to the Lower Cableway Station or tackle the steep uphill 1km walk (the route is well signposted).
By City Sightseeing bus 086 173 3287, citysightseeing.co.za. This open-topped bus stops at the Lower Cableway Station, between Buitengracht St and Camps Bay on its Red City Tour route. Cableway tickets can be bought from City Sightseeing offices and drivers.
By taxi You can travel by Uber or normal metered taxi to the Lower Cableway Station, where taxis wait to take you home at the end. Prices on the return journey will likely be higher than normal city fares, but it’s a convenient option that eliminates parking hassles and waiting for buses.
ACTIVITIES
Adventure sports For an adrenaline thrill, you can abseil off Table Mountain, paraglide from Lion’s Head or mountain bike on Devil’s Peak.
Climbing Experienced rock climbers will find enough satisfying routes to last a lifetime, on either granite or Table Mountain sandstone; the climbs are of varying degrees of difficulty, and some are thrillingly exposed.
Hiking A recommended way to experience the mountain is on a guided half- or full-day hike. Tailored to walkers’ individual levels of fitness, the hikes offer a safe route into this wilderness in the heart of the city; there’s also the 73km Hoerikwaggo Trail (tmnp.co.za), a multiday hike up from the Lower Cableway Station and down the plateau and peninsula to Cape Point.
City Bowl
The residential areas of the City Bowl gently climbing Table Mountain’s lower slopes are a district in which to consume, with good restaurants, bars and cafés serving the affluent residents, tourists and city-centre workers.
A landmark of the district, as you arrive in the city along the M3, is the grand Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel, which harks back to the heyday of British colonialism with its gigantic, white, pedimented gateway supported on Corinthian columns. Look out for it on the south side of Orange Street in the suburb of Gardens, which is named after the Company’s Garden and the smallholdings that once climbed the mountain. Almost next door to the Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel is the Labia, an inexpensive art-house cinema.
Kloof Street is a hip strip of shops and hangouts, especially around the Lifestyle on Kloof mall. Nearby, look out for music shop Mabu Vinyl, which featured in the Oscar-winning documentary, Searching for Sugar Man. Parallel with Kloof Street, busy Kloof Nek Road links central Cape Town to Kloof Nek and the cable car, and is the only central pass over the Table Mountain chain to the Atlantic seaboard. As you drive over the nek (neck), there are astounding vistas down to the ocean.
Molteno Reservoir
Molteno Rd • Daily 9am–5pm
The 800m asphalt path around the late nineteenth-century Molteno Reservoir, an Oranjezicht landmark, is popular with local runners, with impressive views of Table Mountain, Lion’s Head and the city towers. You can walk up here through leafy De Waal Park, where free concerts are staged on summer Sundays.
getting around: THE CITY BOWL
By MyCiTi bus Bus #103 runs between the Civic Centre and Oranjezicht via Buitenkant St and Gardens, and the #101 between the Civic Centre and Vredehoek via Long St, Orange St, Mill St and Gardens.