0 Comments Lions Head in Cape Town

Article written by the awesome Sean Lloyd on the 16 Oct 2007

Lions Head is that thing that actually does not resemble a Lions Head at all, therefore it does not really need to be called “Lions Head” But in fact it is called Lions Head. Very strange. Anyway, it can be seen from pretty much everywhere in Cape Town(Well not EVERYWHERE…but you get the point) and you would be a fool to miss it. But if you did miss it don’t think you are a fool, I am only joking!

I would go into the details of how it was named, but I think we all understand from the previous paragraph that it does not really make sense anyway, so I will leave it out.

Lions Head is one of those things that you have to do in Cape Town. I remember climbing it when I was young and thinking that it was the biggest peak in the world. But in actual fact it is quite small and I would not say you have to be fit at all to do it.

I went up on Sunday with Mike Pearson, who rolls in my Entourage(Yes, with a capital C), and we are quite fit at the moment so it was not too hard. Well, we did do a sub 2 hour for the Two Oceans Half Marathon this year, so we are at our peak. I love saying “Sub 2 hour” because it can mean anything from 1 hour to 1hr59min. I won’t tell you what we really did though! It might be too much awesomeness to hear in one day.

On Sunday we did encounter a couple of people who we passed at about the half way mark on our way up. After getting to the top, we passed them going down again, so maybe it is a little bit harder than I think, or those people are just really unfit, or the pistons of myself and BMP’s (Big Mike Pearson) are just really well tuned at the moment. I think it’s a bit of all of the above.

It’s really weird how excessive I am at the moment. To truly understand the excessiveness of this particular climb up Lions Head, we need to understand the true nature of my weekend.

We had the co-anchors blowout of a 21st on Friday night, which ended at Pastis in Constantia. Not willing to stop partying at 2am(Ever), I caught a ride to Wadda and eventually, after a hilarious night, got to bed at 5:45 am. This is due to the nature of the stuff we drank on Friday night. Don’t worry, I will reveal all in my post which I think I shall entitle “The Pastis blowout” Serious debauchery. I woke up at about 9am and then only had a light one hour sleep on the Saturday afternoon.

Then on Saturday night I was honoured to attend the launch of Twenty cigarettes. This ended at about 2am for me and I then woke at 8:30am to meet BMP at Lions Head at 10am. That is some serious excess, but excess is everything that myself and the SLXS Entourage stand for. I will write on this during the week as well.
So anyway, we started climbing and about five minutes into the climb/run/walk, I realised that Lions Head on weekends is like a shopping centre. Way too full. Way too “commercial” for me. There were such a ridiculous number of people on Lions Head that I thought someone was having us on for a while. We continually had to wait behind people and what was supposed to be a relaxing walk in nature, turned out to be a commercial event! That’s not to say I didn’t have an enormous amount of fun though!

We were met at the top with a crazy sight. An abundance of school kids and lots of cloud cover. So in effect, we had climbed up there for absolutely no view and school kids drinking Oros. Fantastic! It was fun though, but the best part is not the climb up, but the run down. Most normal people like to take a leisurely stroll down, but here at SLXS I like to live life on the edge.

We ran down so incredibly fast that even I was a little nervous of twisting my ankle. But throwing caution to the wind, we scrambled down there like our lives depended on it. There is something about running down a hill at pace, without a care in the world, and the most beautiful city in the world all around you, that makes you feel like a kid again. It is for this reason, and the views from the top, that I wonder how people manage to get themselves into a gym.

We can spend our lives lifting weights trying to look like the guy on the cover of that magazine, but what really matters is having fun. Who cares if you can leg press 500 kilograms or bench press 100 kilograms? What is the point of this, if the only time you will ever do this is in the gym? Mens magazines breed the same sort of people that runway models used to, that of so called “perfection” You can look like that cover model, but do you really want to spend two hours inside a building every day, lifting weights? Why do this when there is an entire world out there to be explored?

Another person who thinks like me, and also could have stolen the words right out my mouth, is Mark Bayly, the host of Survivor South Africa. In the September 2007 issue of Men’s Health Best Life, on page 54, he appears in an article which focuses on his workout. To quote the article, and Mark:

“There’s something about going to the gym that doesn’t really work for me. When the weather is terrible, I’ll go and do some form of workout, like a spinning class, but I’ve never been able to maintain a weight routine. I admire guys who have the mental capacity to do it, but I find it mind-numbing”

This is exactly the way I think. I can think of nothing more boring than lifting weights and looking at myself in a mirror while sitting indoors. I would rather be looking at nature. I mean, I see myself in the mirror each morning and that is more than enough. Although, I won’t lie, I like to sneak glimpses of myself occasionally because I am clumsy and would probably otherwise go out with toothpaste on my lips and something like celery in my teeth.

It’s also well known that I like to break a mental sweat, as well as a physical one. I would quote myself here, but once again Mark has thought the same as me. As he says in the magazine:

” I love coming down the mountain. This is when you’ve got to have your wits about you. You’re scrambling and your brain is making millions of decisions(As opposed to running on a treadmill). It has a euphoric effect”

And that’s exactly it. That is exactly my point of view. So I think we should all get out a bit more, and just to entice you to get out in Cape Town, and to visit it if you are overseas, let’s have a look at the view.

These photos were taken a while back and we did some serious posing on the top of the mountain. Thankfully it was sort of quiet that day, and when no one was watching we took the photos. You can climb Lions Head, and be boring about it, but we took it to the limits! That’s what I do, I make everything crazy. Even a simple Lions Head walk is turned on it’s head. Mike also had the awesome idea of “lifting” up Robben Island. That photo has become near legendary, and if you do go up you should consider taking one of yourself in the same pose.

So that’s another thing you need to do in Cape Town. Climb Lions Head everyone! See you at the top. Race you down?

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