Lenina Rassool
A Port Elizabeth pilot who works in Afghanistan received a pleasant surprise when he discovered that he had bought the 21-millionth ticket for a ride up Table Mountain’s cableway yesterday.
Johan Van Huyssteen, 30, and his wife, Sharon, 33, had flown to Cape Town on Tuesday to spend one week of his four week off-duty period.
Van Huyssteen said his work cycle meant spending eight weeks in Afghanistan and four weeks at home. They had decided to visit Cape Town because of the good weather.
The couple was approached by cableway marketing manager Collette van Aswegen, while buying their tickets, and handed a 21-millionth visitor certificate, a hamper containing two tickets for yesterday’s ride, a meal and snacks voucher for the Table Mountain Café and a Cable Card for Van Huyssteen granting him free trips for a year.
Van Aswegen said that welcoming their 21-millionth visitor was a milestone for the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway. “We’re excited about reaching this milestone, especially considering we’ve transported 21 million visitors over 80 years without any accidents.”
To commemorate the sale of the 21-millionth ticket, here are 10 interesting facts about the cableway and the mountain that dominates Cape Town:
l The first plans for transport up Table Mountain were for a funicular railway. This was approved and delayed twice due to the First Boer War in 1880 and World War I of 1914-18. It was never completed. The plans for a cableway were only proposed in 1926.
l The cableway is privately owned by the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company, which pays rental to the Table Mountain National Park. The company was formed in 1926 and has changed hands only once, in 1993.
l The first woman to climb to the top of Table Mountain was accomplished travel writer, artist and socialite Lady Anne Barnard, in 1790. She was accompanied by three gentlemen, seven slaves and her personal maid.
l The cableway was designed by Cape Town architects Walgate & Elsworth, but a German company, Adolf Bleichert & Co, was contracted to build it.
l The cableway took about three years to build. Construction started in 1926 and the Table Mountain cableway opened its doors on October 4, 1929.
l Construction work on the original cableway was very dangerous and builders relied on a temporary ropeway and an open box – called a soapbox – to transport building materials and workers to the top of the mountain.
l After a major revamp of the cableway in 1997, the carrying capacity of the cable car increased from 23 to 68 people. The speed of the cable car was also increased from 4m/sec, which meant 10 minutes to summit, to 10m/s. It now takes four minutes to reach the top.
l There are no water pipes on the mountain. Water is stored in a water tank below the rotating floor at the bottom cable station from where it is transported to the top.
l The Table Mountain cable car is one of three of its kind in the world. The others are in Titlis, Switzerland and Palm Springs, US.
l The millionth customer of the Table Mountain Cableway rode up in 1959, 30 years after the cableway opened its doors.
l The cableway’s 20-millionth visitor was Colombian film-maker Federico Uribe Velesquez, who bought a ticket on March 25 last year.