South Africa

• The Cape Escape - Cape Town
• My Mountain High in Cape Town - Cape Town
• The Drop Zone - Cape Town
• On the trail to true adventure - Johannesburg
• The great es-Cape - Cape Town
• Come into the Garden - The Garden Route
• My Zulu Extravaganza - Durban
• Up Close and Personal - South African Safari
• Tracking Big Game - Kruger National Park
• Sleeping with the Lions - South African Safari
• A Safari with real pride - South African Safari
• Where the Lion King comes to Life - South African Safari
• Our guide to the top 10 safaris - South African Safari
• A Roaring Success - Victoria Falls
• Come into the Garden - The Garden Route
• The Worlds Most Beautiful Road? - The Garden Route
• Zipping off to Zanzibar - Zanzibar, Kenya
• Africa's catch of the day - Mozambique
• The Cape escape… and it was right up my Street - Garden Route: South Africa
• The nation kissed by a rainbow - South Africa
• Our wild silver wedding! - Kenya

I KNOW YOU'RE NOT supposed to swallow every mouthful of wine at a tasting session but, believe me, in the wineries of South Africa’s Cape, it’s hard not to glug – even just after breakfast.

At the Flagstone Winery at Somerset West, near Cape Town, it was proving hard to tear me away from cellarmaster Wilhelm ‘Red’ Coetzee, who kept offering yet another glass of nectar.

When he brought out a pinotage called Writer’s Block and invited me to savour ‘aromas of wild blueberry and ripe cherry’, I wanted to marry him. What writer could have a block when inspired by South Africa’s finest?

My sober partner eventually dragged me away to start our first day of driving along South Africa’s glorious southern coast. We headed inland to Stellenbosch, at the heart of the winelands, a dramatically beautiful area with mountains towering over valleys of neat vineyards and lovely towns that show their Cape Dutch and English Victorian heritage.

The Coast was Beckoning

After a late lunch and some shopping, we continued to our first stop, Franschhoek. This exquisite town has just one main street, so it was easy to find our hotel, Le Quartier Francais.

We were booked in for only two nights but, after the sublime dinner in the hotel’s famous restaurant, The Tasting Room, we decided we could have stayed there a week.

The hotel is superb. The accommodation is a series of small ‘cottages’ set around a central courtyard and swimming pool and, as we were to discover, the high standard of service is typical of a country that relies heavily on tourism.

For those who think that a town such as Franschhoek is almost too pretty, you can take a short drive through stunning scenery to Paarl, where traders line the streets selling everything from saucepans to suitcases in an atmosphere that is friendly and ‘real’.

Just outside Paarl is Drakenstein Prison, from where Nelson Mandela walked to freedom in February 1990. I decided we should toast Mandela, so it was back to Franschhoek and another winery called Grand Provence, as grand as you could imagine, yet still friendly. There’s a tasting room and another wonderful restaurant.

But the coast was beckoning, so we drove in a loop through the mountain scenery of the Overberg towards Hermanus. This awe-inspiring route became even more beautiful when we could see the ocean too.

Our next hotel, the Blue Gum Country Estate, near Stanford, was difficult to find, but worth it. The old house is located along a rutted track but there is nothing primitive about the accommodation. We had a huge room with an open fire, sofa and terrace looking out on to the ‘fynbos’ (literally ‘fine bush’), a rich natural terrain of wildflowers and grasses.

Quietly Thrilling

We wasted no time in taking the winding trail around the lower slopes of the nearby mountain, surprising a baboon and a duiker (an animal similar to a springbok) and observing a sleepy snake by the path. The wild cry of crows split the air. It was quietly thrilling.

That night the Blue Gum lost its electricity supply for a while, so we ate a delicious dinner by candlelight and were sorry when the power returned.

People flock to the coast here to whale-watch. At Hermanus we waited somewhat anxiously in a sparkling bay and were rewarded with the sight of a mother whale and calf basking close to shore.

The owner of the Blue Gum, Nic Dupper, told us that tourism may be one of the ways to solve the social problems of this ‘rainbow nation’. He trains all his staff and is prepared to sell 25pc of the business to them to help them prosper.

It was hard to leave Blue Gum, but the road was calling again.We had a five-and-a-half-hour haul to Plettenberg Bay. On the way, we took a detour, bumping along a 30-mile stretch of bleak dirt road to Cape Agulhas, Africa’s southernmost point. It’s an essential photo opportunity, of course, with the lighthouse there, the second oldest in South Africa, the centrepiece.

Heading east past lovely Mossel Bay, you reach that verdant, scenic stretch of coastline known as the Garden Route. Here the climate is milder and wetter than elsewhere in South Africa, and all around us were magnificent forests.

Plettenberg Bay, or Plett as it’s known, is a smart little resort, combining mountain scenery, white sand and blue water. After quickly dipping my toes in the Indian Ocean, we drove another 10 miles beyond the town to our next hotel, another delight. Seasoned travellers in South Africa will laugh at me, but I didn’t expect such amazing standards of service, accommodation or food.

Hog Hollow Country Lodge proved to be both exotic and entertaining. It comprises a cluster of wooden cabins, supported on stilts because of the steep nature of the site. Each has a terrace, complete with hammock, and overlooks a lush valley where monkeys whoop.

Dinner was at communal tables – really enjoyable, and great to talk to new people, German and English visitors.

The next day we devoted to wildlife, but viewed within the easy surroundings of magnificent sanctuaries. Monkeyland and Birds of Eden, run by the same company, are both a short drive away. They were fascinating and thrilling in equal measure, because you can get very close to creatures you would never normally see in an environment that is near to their natural habitat.

A Great Adventure

For the day-long drive to Cape Town we decided to take the inland route, R62, avoiding the beautiful but crowded coastal road. It was a great adventure – a dirt road threading through mostly uninhabited mountains, with dark forests unfolding into bare wild tracts of land, and astonishing distant vistas of mountain peaks layered in shades of grey.

At one point we passed a troupe of baboons making their way along the road. Wild and bleak as it was, this landscape felt somehow authentic: far from the tourism of which we were a part.

That night, sitting on our balcony in one of Cape Town’s boutique hotels, Les Cascades, we found ourselves missing the sights and sounds of the countryside at Blue Gum and Hog Hollow. But no matter. We were now about to have a busy week in South Africa’s answer to sunny, laid back Sydney, and suspected that this was just the beginning of a love affair with this beautiful land.