It didn’t start off well. We’d been planning to drive in my husband’s somewhat ancient vehicle, but a few days before we left the engine more or less just dug in its wheels and refused to go. We looked into hiring a 4x4, but it was so expensive we might as well have charted a private jet. I was all for it, at that point. But in the end we settled on an affordable but distinctly bottom-of-the-range bakkie; a good thing, as it turned out, because it was big enough to carry everyone else’s water, spare tyres, mattresses, chairs, beers, tents, clothes and… I actually have no idea how any of us would have managed without it.
We were a motley group made up of writers, farmers, architects, amateur historians, art dealers, medical researchers, carbon traders and artists, and it all worked out beautifully. The farmers are wine and bubbly producers, which almost totally compensated for the fact that they woke up at 5am every single day absolutely raring to go, while most of us favoured a slightly slower launch (usually as a result of their excellent produce the night before).
The trip
Penny, one of the early risers, put the trip together, and it was a damn good itinerary: When we stayed just one night, it was
