Early explorers, Van Hunks and the devil, table cloth

Waterfront
Table Mountain is to Cape Town what salt is to pepper. They go together. Early sailors came to see this landmark as a guide on their journeys around the Cape en route to the east.

Famous explorers Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama stopped in the bay at the foot of the mountain as early as 1488. But the name came from the Dutch who named it Tafelberg as the mountain has flat and square shape like a table. And when the mist rolls over the top of our mountain, we say she has a table cloth.

There is a legend about Van Hunks having a smoking contest with the devil to explain the "table cloth". Locals use the mountain for direction and the mountain range runs along a peninsula to Cape Point where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean meet.

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