SA Tourism
Ninety-five years after the first visitors travelled to the top of Table Mountain in a wooden cable car, the world-famous Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company (TMACC) is still bustling and doing what it does best – providing visitors from near and far with a memory and a lasting experience.
The Executive Director for TMACC Selma Hercules says they cannot wait to celebrate this milestone with South Africa on Friday.
In the years since its official opening (on 4 October 1929), the Cableway has undergone three major upgrades and regular maintenance.
Today, it is a familiar feature of Cape Town’s famous flat-topped mountain, but not many people know how and why the project first got off the ground.
The Cableway’s history dates back to the 1870s when there were proposals to build a railway along the mountain’s slopes to make it easier for members of the public to reach the summit.
Although the initial plan was to build a funicular railway, the development was halted by the advent of World War I, then in 1926 when Norwegian engineer Trygve Stromsoe proposed the construction of a cableway, it planted the seed for what we now know as the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway.
A host of icons, celebrities and royals are among the millions of people who have used the Cableway over the years.
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey, musician Sting, actor Famke Janssen, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, singer Kelly Rowland, and Justin Bieber are just some of the famous names who have taken a ride to the top of the mountain.
The Cableway remains one of Cape Town’s biggest tourist attractions, transporting approximately a million visitors annually and counting,” says Hercules.
South Africans celebrating their birthday this month will have a free return cable car ride.
The free ticket option is available to South Africans in the calendar month in which they celebrate their birthday (SA ID required), and all the information you need is available on the various TMACC social media channels.
