Table Mountain has always been a part of my life. As a child on the Cape Flats, the mountain was a landmark that represented comfort and beauty ... but I never imagined that one day I would be part of a team telling the world about this New7Wonder of Nature.
I started working at Flow Communications the day after Table Mountain was inaugurated as one of the New7Wonders of Nature. My colleague, Stuart Buchanan, did an amazing job of covering the inauguration, which further catapulted Table Mountain into the international psyche.
The iconic mountain has much to offer, and the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, a custodian of a high use part of the mountain, has a huge responsibility: Table Mountain is part of the Cape Floristic Kingdom, and offers spectacular views of Cape Town.
I may have missed out on writing about the inauguration event, but over the past three months I have been able to write a number of important (and some very funny) blogs.
I am passionate about sustainable development, and during Responsible Tourism Week I was given an opportunity to showcase the Cableway’s commitment to the planet, people and economic upliftment.
We set ourselves a deadline that week: to make the Cableway’s responsible tourism page go live – no mean feat considering that my tech skills were still in their infancy. Flow project manager Leanne Pohlmann kept me calm and worked with me when I panicked about meeting the deadline. And she was right – the page, albeit with a glitch or two, was up and running by the deadline.
But it’s not only been the serious issues that I have worked on. The day singer/songwriter Rodriguez visited the Cableway, the Cableway’s marketing team snapped a picture of him and got a quote. I wrote a blog that was live less than two hours later.
Flow Cape Town manager Roy Barford always encourages me to link Table Mountain to events in Cape Town, and when colleague Leon Jamarie found a YouTube “Harlem Shake” video featuring Table Mountain, it was the obvious choice for our Friday video blog. We went one step further and found three Harlem Shake Table Mountain videos.
Readers like a bit of fun, and our blog on the strange questions and requests the Cableway receptionists are faced with was met with much laughter – but this was also an opportunity to set the record straight on questions such as “Why do the rabbits look so funny?” and “Can I drive up the mountain?”.
Working with the Cableway and writing about Table Mountain is a highlight of my career. I would never have imagined all those years ago when I said to my dad, “That mountain looks like a sleeping giant”, that one day I would be proudly writing about this giant landmark.
