Cape Town’s beloved and world-famous Table Mountain in all its majestic beauty. (Photo: Supplied)
By Don Pinnock – 23 February 2026
Geologist John Compton invites us to see the mountain not as a postcard peak, but as an ancient, ongoing process that can recalibrate how we think about time. He also wants Capetonians who live under this massive, unavoidable geology to really see it.
If you ask Professor John Compton what Table Mountain is, he won’t give you the simple answer you may have hoped for. He won’t say “a mountain in Cape Town” or even “a famous landmark”. Instead, he smiles as though you’ve asked a mischievous question – one worth unclasping slowly…