Table Mountain, Cape Town · Travel Poster

Each poster comes with a letter home, Ella writes about the place, its hidden history, and the detail that never makes it onto the information boards.

The rock making up that flat summit is around 500 million years old, laid down in an ocean called the Adamastor that existed long before the Atlantic did. The Atlantic itself only opened up around 150 to 200 million years ago, when the old supercontinent Pangaea began to split apart. So the mountain was already ancient by the time the ocean beside it existed at all. As for the cloud that sometimes spills over the top, locals call it the tablecloth, and blame it on a smoking contest between a retired pirate and the devil that, depending who you ask, never actually ended.

This poster is an original illustration in watercolour and ink, painted by Ella for the Ella’s Adventures travel poster series.

No frame included.