Scenic

A journey of jaw-dropping beauty along the coast east of Cape Town after I picked up a hire car and zoomed off.

This is somewhere along the spectacular coastal road (known as the Whale Coast Route because southern right whales pass by in certain months of the year). There are stopping and vantage points aplenty as the Department of Transport obviously recognises that the scenery here compels people to brake suddenly and stare out to the ocean.

Accommodation proves to be limited in high summer holiday season in South Africa when you try and book it the day of arrival. I plumped for somewhere in the hills to serve as a good base for exploring the area. I have no fixed agenda and want to roam around for a few days to see where the wind (read: excellent road network and Google Maps) takes me.

In the hotel room I received a phone call in the middle of the night.

[making my voice as groggy as possible to emphasise the inconvenience] ‘Hello’.

A woman’s voice. ‘Hello, who is this?’

You tell me love, you called me in the dead of night. ‘I don’t think I know you, do I.’

Woman hangs up.

Luckily there weren’t any further interruptions and the remainder was a peaceful night in the hills.