This is my mate Mark Baker:

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And this is taken on Lion’s Head [which is a part of Table Mountain]:

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And a number of the classic highlight moments of my life include a combination of the two of these…

i guess this story has certain elements of you-had-to-be-there moments which if you were there were completely normal, but trying to explain them is only going to sound dodgy and a little out there but i’ll let judging me be your problem – i’m just here to tell stories.

Suffice it to say that Bakes and i had a history of pant-dropping or mooning at various times of my youth-leading career [like the time i gave him a banana g-strong as a joke for his 18th birthday at the waterfront and he proceeded to put it on over his pants and model at the window of the Spur to the amusement/fear of the people eating on the other side – also the first time i met his mom – you stay classy San Diego!]

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And Lion’s Head is just stunning and a great spot to watch the sun go down. So at one point Mark and i decided we needed to sleep at the top of Lion’s Head [which is technically not allowed slash frowned upon] and so one day with sleeping bags and guitar [cos when you climb a mountain that has chains at one point, you should always take a guitar] we did just that. In fact i think in total we did it three times with many great laughs and a few good stories coming from those times.

# For some reason at one point on the way up the first time we climbed, one of us [i’m going to say Bakes!] thought it would be a great idea to derobe a little [i can’t remember how we knew there were not still people at the top coming down but i guess we started pretty late in the evening] and so we ended up stripped down to our undies [with guitar, because chains!] and then halfway up thought it would be a good idea to get a photo [back in the days of real cameras children, ask your parents!] to remember the occasion. We set my camera up to take an automatic picture and captured the moment. i also remember somehow losing my lens cap and us searching for about 40 minutes before we found it [yes, halfway up a mountain in our undies!]

And so the ‘naked’ Lion’s Head night hikes began. When we got to the last 2 hundred meters or so and were pretty convinced there was no-one else on top then we went full au naturel to make it legit. Which led to a lot of funny chirps, much belly laughter, and of course, “THERE’S A GUY!”

# Probably our highlight story from our times on Lion’s head was the time when we got to the top [second or third time we did it – became an annual tradition til we went overseas and did a pseudo version of it with me in Amsterdam and Bakes in London] and we had put our clothes back on and suddenly, i can’t even remember which one of us uttered that immortal line, maybe Bakes, but one of us stumbled upon a sleeping bag with a European in it and our response was, “There’s a guy!” Much laughter and he took the group photos for us that year. i think he was Danish or Norwegian or something – fun bloke and some good hangout moments together.

# Then there was the time the police phoned my parents at 3 in the morning because they found my “abandoned car” at the base of the mountain and assumed it had been stolen. Not quite sure how we managed to get out of that one but fortunately my folks knew where we were going and so were able to defuse that one. That could have been an awkward encounter.

Great laughs, good bonding, cool worship times [cos, guitar!], a missing lens cap, an almost police encounter – definitely a number of the highlight moments of my life with one of my best friends.

SLAAAAAAAP!

[For other Highlight moments of my life, click here]