Drakensberg Cable Car

no4stopper wrote:

We must however remain watchful as there is prodigious talent in the corridors of power for hunting white elephants.

Made my day!      

 

Load Shedding will have added its own premium to the ride on this gravy train. You'll need to bring a sleeping bag and some entertainment with you for the long dangle.

CT isn't immune.
www.news24.com/sport/cricket/load-shedding-strikes-as-england-cricketer-in-terrifying-cape-town-cable-car-drama-20230223

It's scary to imagine this actually gaining proper traction this time around. The whole lure of the mountains is that they're remote and wild, adding a cableway and traffic to a mountain will take away from this and introduces the issues of populated areas, like an increase in crime, pollution and people with Bluetooth speakers.

Can we not start up a campaign to boycott this? 

Atterboy wrote:

It's scary to imagine this actually gaining proper traction this time around. The whole lure of the mountains is that they're remote and wild, adding a cableway and traffic to a mountain will take away from this and introduces the issues of populated areas, like an increase in crime, pollution and people with Bluetooth speakers.
 

The upside of the proposal is that it would be used so rarely due to being in the middle of nowhere, being so far off any popular route, being too expensive and slow, and the proposed spot is so far out of the way from where most hikers go that you probably wouldn't actually notice it being there. Ironically the hiking community is the group that's least adversely impacted by this proposal, if it actually happened. The people who would suffer the most are the local community who would lose grazing land and be forced to move from the land where their families have lived for many years, in addition to having all that construction work going on right by their homes.

The proposal comes up every 5 years before elections, and goes away shortly thereafter. There isn't R1b (or whatever it is now) lying around for a project like this, so I wouldn't be too stressed about this happening. The project isn't feasible, so they aren't likely to find an external funder either.

The proposed cable car, were it to materialise, would certainly impact heavily on the lives of those living at the lower station. I agree with Ghaz on this. 

I disagree that hikers would be the least impacted. It is obvious to me that it would screw up a key part of Mnweni - a remote and beautiful area. 

The project was driven by greed and corruption. The gravy on the train has dried up for now, and the snouts are too big to fit inside the remaining shallow troughs. 

Not to pure fuel on the fire... I just came back from MCC and the rode there has been greatly improved from a few months ago. It's pretty good all the way to the bridge where most hikes into Mnweni area start and end. That crazy hill before the bridge was a breeze.

matroskinn wrote:

Not to pure fuel on the fire... I just came back from MCC and the rode there has been greatly improved from a few months ago. It's pretty good all the way to the bridge where most hikes into Mnweni area start and end. That crazy hill before the bridge was a breeze.

The proposals for the cable way were in a different valley from the Mnweni river valley which leads to MCC.

 

Will be great if they can build something from MCC to where jeep tracks ends.
Or from Witsieshoek mountain lodge to Sentinel car park.