Table Mountain is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa. It is a significant tourist attraction, with many visitors using the cableway or hiking to the top. Table Mountain National Park is the most visited national park in South Africa, attracting 4.2 million people every year for various activities. The mountain has 8,200 plant species, of which around 80% are fynbos, meaning fine bush. It forms part of the Table Mountain National Park, and part of the lands formerly ranged by Khoe-speaking clans, such as the !Uriǁʼaes. It is home to a large array of mostly endemic fauna and flora. Its top elevates about 1.000 m above the surrounding city, making the popular hike upwards on a large variety of different, often steep and rocky pathways a serious mountain tour which requires fitness, preparation and hiking equipment.
Fynbos is a small belt of natural shrubland or heathland vegetation located in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. This area is predominantly coastal and mountainous, with a Mediterranean climate and rainy winters. The fynbos ecoregion is within the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. In fields related to biogeography, fynbos is known for its exceptional degree of biodiversity and endemism, consisting of about 80% species of the Cape floral kingdom, where nearly 6,000 of them are endemic. This land continues to face severe human-caused threats, but due to the many economic uses of the fynbos, conservation efforts are being made to help restore it.
The Huguenot Tunnel is a toll tunnel near Cape Town, South Africa. It extends the N1 national road through the Du Toitskloof mountains that separate Paarl from Worcester, providing a route that is safer, faster and shorter than the old Du Toitskloof Pass travelling over the mountain. On average 12,000 vehicles use the tunnel every day with up to 22,500 vehicles using it daily on holidays.
Constantiaberg is a large, whale-backed mountain that forms part of the mountainous spine of the Cape Peninsula in Table Mountain National Park, Cape Town, South Africa. It lies about 7 km south of Table Mountain, on the southern side of Constantia Nek. The mountain is 927 m high. It is not known who first ascended the peak.
The Langeberg Range is a mountain range in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its highest peak is Keeromsberg at 2,075 m that lies 15 km northeast of the town of Worcester. Some of the highest peaks of the range are located just to the north of Swellendam, in a subrange known as the Clock Peaks whose highest point is the 1,710 m high Misty Point. Local lore states one can tell the time by means of the shadows cast by the seven summits of the Clock Peaks.
Helderberg refers to a planning district of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality, the mountain after which it is named, a wine-producing area in the Western Cape province of South Africa, or a small census area in Somerset West.
The Cape Fold Belt is a fold and thrust belt of late Paleozoic age, which affected the sequence of sedimentary rock layers of the Cape Supergroup in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It was originally continuous with the Ventana Mountains near Bahía Blanca in Argentina, the Pensacola Mountains, the Ellsworth Mountains and the Hunter-Bowen orogeny in eastern Australia. The rocks involved are generally sandstones and shales, with the shales persisting in the valley floors while the erosion resistant sandstones form the parallel ranges, the Cape Fold Mountains, which reach a maximum height of 2325 m at Seweweekspoortpiek.
The Tsitsikamma mountains form an east-west mountain range located in the Garden Route region of the southern South African coast in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces. Tsitsikamma means 'place of much water' in the Khoekhoe language.
The Hex River Mountains make up the second highest mountain range in the Western Cape province of South Africa and are located 120 kilometres north-east of Cape Town. They form part of a large anticline in the Cape Fold Belt mountain system and form a north-east, south-west trending mountain system forming the core of the Cape Syntaxis between the towns of Worcester and De Doorns. They are mostly composed of Table Mountain sandstone and most peaks reach 2,000 metres in height or more. The highest mountain is Matroosberg at 2,249 metres, making it the second tallest peak in the province after Seweweekspoort Peak in the Swartberg Mountain Range.
The Hottentots Holland Mountains are part of the Cape Fold Belt in the Western Cape, South Africa. The mountain range forms a barrier between the Cape Town metropolitan area and the southern Overberg coast.
Table Mountain Sandstone (TMS) is a group of rock formations within the Cape Supergroup sequence of rocks. Although the term "Table Mountain Sandstone" is still widely used in common parlance, the term TMS is no longer formally recognized; the correct name is the "Peninsula Formation Sandstone", which is part of the Table Mountain Group. The designation "Table Mountain Sandstone" will, however, in deference to the title, continue to be used in the rest of this article. The name is derived from the famous landmark in Cape Town, Table Mountain.
The Drakenstein mountain is a mountain range in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It lies opposite Simonsberg Mountain and is part of the Cape Fold Belt. It is named after ex-soldier Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein, who was Colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company.
The Groot Winterhoek mountains are located in the Western Cape province of South Africa and are part of the Cape Fold Belt comprising a watershed area of 552,606 hectares. They rise to a maximum height of 2077 m just north of the town of Tulbagh as Groot Winterhoek peak. The mountains are predominantly made up of Table Mountain sandstone. Up to 83% of the range is still classified as being in a natural state and up to 72% of the range is protected. The towns of Saron and Porterville are located at the foot the mountain range's western side.
The Kogelberg is a range of mountains along the False Bay coast in the Western Cape of South Africa. They form part of the Cape Fold Belt, starting south of the Elgin valley and forming a steep coastal range as far as Kleinmond.
The Cape rock gecko or Hawequa flat gecko is a species of lizard in the family Gekkonidae. The species is endemic to South Africa.
Breede River Valley is a region of Western Cape Province, South Africa known for being the largest fruit and wine producing valley in the Western Cape, as well as South Africa's leading race-horse breeding area. It is part of the Boland bordering on becoming Little Karoo towards the east.
Seweweekspoortpiek is a peak in the Western Cape, South Africa. It is the highest mountain in the Cape Fold Belt and the highest point in the Western Cape province. Along with its western neighbour, Du Toits Peak, it qualifies as an Ultra and these are the only two in the country.
Du Toitskloof Pass is situated in the Western Cape province of South Africa, on the regional route R101 between Paarl and Worcester. It was initially an animal track where a road was built around the time of World War II, including a 200m Du Toitskloof Tunnel.
The Kammanassie Mountains are a mountain range in the Western Cape, South Africa. The highest peak is Mannetjiesberg at 1,955 metres above sea level and the mountain range is one of the prominent east-west trending ranges composing the southern branch of the Cape Fold Belt.
Paranomus capitatus, the fine-leaf sceptre, is a flower-bearing shrub that belongs to the genus Paranomus and forms part of the fynbos. The plant is native to the Western Cape where it occurs in the Du Toits Mountains south of Du Toitskloof Pass to the northern slopes of the Riviersonderend Mountains.
