Devil's Peak (Cape Town)
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Devil's Peak | |
---|---|
Duiwelspiek | |
Hottentots Holland range in the distance | |
Highest point | |
Elevation | 1,000 m (3,300 ft) |
Coordinates | 33°57′17.11″S 18°26′21.35″E / 33.9547528°S 18.4392639°E |
Geography | |
Location | Western Cape, South Africa |
Geology | |
Age of rock | Silurian/Ordovician |
Climbing | |
Easiest route | Hike |
Devil's Peak is part of the mountainous backdrop to Cape Town, South Africa. When looking at Table Mountain from the city centre, or when looking towards the city across Table Bay, the skyline from left to right consists of Devil's Peak, the flat summit of Table Mountain, the peak of Lion's Head, and Signal Hill.
The central districts of Cape Town are located within this natural amphitheatre. The city grew out of a settlement founded on the shore below the mountains in 1652 by Jan van Riebeeck, for the Dutch East India Company. Some of the first farms in the Cape were established on the slopes of Devil's Peak, along the Liesbeek River.
Devil's Peak stands 1,000 metres (3,281 ft) high, less than Table Mountain's 1,087 metres (3,566 ft), and there are a number of hiking routes to the summit.
Landmarks
The Rhodes Memorial to Cecil Rhodes, and the University of Cape Town are situated on the eastern slopes of Devil's Peak. Other landmarks on the eastern slopes are Mostert's Mill, Groote Schuur Hospital, and the Groote Schuur estate, including a number of presidential and ministerial residences.
A number of historic military blockhouses are situated on Devil's Peak, along with a number of cannons intended to defend the city from attack from the south. There is an abandoned fire lookout high up on Mowbray Ridge.
Hiking
There are a lot of easy walks on the lower slopes of the mountain. A popular short hike is from Rhodes Memorial to the King's blockhouse. The only generally accessible ascent of the peak is from the Saddle, between the peak and Table Mountain. There are three routes to reach the Saddle: from Tafelberg Road on the city side, up Newlands Ravine from Newlands Forest, or the upper contour path from Mowbray Ridge and Minor Peak. Once on the Saddle, a straightforward path climbs directly to the summit, which has a 360° view of Cape Town and Table Mountain. A number of the gorges on the West side of the mountain are steep, wet and dangerous,particularly Second Waterfall Ravine, Dark Gorge and Els Ravine.
Vegetation
The northern slopes overlooking the city centre are covered in typical
The slopes on the Southern Suburbs side however, are naturally wetter and more protected from fires, so these slopes were originally partially covered with deep indigenous forests. Some of these dense afro-montane forests still remain in the gorges, but most of them were cut down to make way for commercial pine plantations. Near Rhodes Memorial there are a stands of the native silver tree, one of the few remaining areas where the tree still grows wild.
During the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, Devil's Peak (and other adjacent heights) were commercially planted with plantations of
Fauna
Indigenous animals include porcupines,
In the 1930s, a few Himalayan tahrs (wild goats) escaped from a zoo on the slopes of Devil's Peak and bred until their population on the Table Mountain range was over 700. A culling programme has eliminated most of them, although a few still remain. Some of the original local species of small antelope are being re-introduced to replace the tahrs.[2][3][4] Fallow deer were once kept in the area of Rhodes Memorial, but were removed starting in 2006.[5]
Geology
The upper, rocky parts of Devil's Peak, Table Mountain and Lion's Head consist of a hard, uniform and resistant
Origins of the name
Devil's Peak was originally known as Windberg[6] or Charles Mountain.[7][8] The English term Devil's Peak is a 19th-century translation from the Dutch Duivels Kop, and supposedly comes from the folk-tale about a Dutch man called Jan van Hunks, a prodigious pipe smoker who lived at the foot of the mountain circa 1700. He was forced by his wife to leave the house whenever he smoked his pipe. One day, while smoking on the slopes of the peak, he met a mysterious stranger who also smoked. They each bragged of how much they smoked and so they fell into a pipe-smoking contest. The stranger turned out to be the devil and Van Hunks eventually won the contest, but not before the smoke that they had made had covered the mountain, forming the table cloth cloud.[9] The story was captured by the 19th century poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his poem Jan van Hunks (alternatively called The Dutchman's Wager).[10] However, since Rosetti's poem was only published in 1909, it's unlikely that this was the true source of the name, rather an urban legend.
It has been claimed that the name is a corruption of Duifespiek ("Dove's Peak") to Duivelspiek ("Devil's Peak"), since the Dutch words for devil and dove are relatively close in sound. The Dutch word "Duivelspiek" has been the common Afrikaans language name for the mountain and the suburb on the east side of the city bowl. The name may have been derived from the mountain's 'three pronged' spear shape, which is reminiscent of the spear held by the Devil in many images.[citation needed]
Another explanation is provided by Devil's Peak Brewery.[11] Forty years before Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape in 1497, the Venetian cartographer Fra Mauro created a map of the world for King Alfonso V of Portugal, based on knowledge drawn from the Arabians. On this map, which became the definitive view of the world for the early Portuguese explorers, he named the southernmost tip of Africa Cabo de Diab – the Devil's Cape. It is possible the association with the devil migrated from there to the mountain.
1971 plane crash
On 26 May 1971, three
See also
- Table Mountain – Flat-topped mountain overlooking the city of Cape Town, South Africa
- Cape Town – Legislative capital of South Africa
References
- ^ "Peninsula Shale Renosterveld. Cape Town Biodiversity Factsheets" (PDF).[permanent dead link]
- ISBN 1-919930-26-4.
- ^ "About 100 tahrs now on Table Mountain". Pretoria News. 28 February 2003. Retrieved 27 July 2010.
- ^ "'Humane' guns claim 95% of tahrs". Cape Times. 10 July 2004. Retrieved 27 July 2010.
- ^ "Devil's Peak deer set for capture". IOL. 19 July 2006. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
- ^ Pettman, Charles (1913). Africanderisms; a glossary of South African colloquial words and phrases and of place and other names. Longmans, Green and Co. p. 143.
- ^ Pettman, Charles (1913). Africanderisms; a glossary of South African colloquial words and phrases and of place and other names. Longmans, Green and Co. p. 143.
- ISBN 1-4068-3096-8.
- ISBN 1-86872-927-3.
- ^ "Jan van Hunks". Rossetti Archive. Retrieved 27 July 2010.
- ^ "How Devil's Peak Really Got Its Name | Craft beer from Cape Town, South Africa | Devil's Peak Brewing Company". Archived from the original on 6 December 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
- ^ Ranter, Harro. "ASN Aircraft accident Hawker Siddeley HS-125-400B 02 Devil's Peak". aviation-safety.net. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
- ISBN 1-919874-12-7.
- ^ "Tragedy on Devils Peak and the end of the SAAF H.S. 125 Mercurius fleet". The Observation Post. 26 October 2015.