The day, hour by hour
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After breakfast
North out of Hermanus
Through the wheat country of the Overberg, which almost no visitor sees: huge rolling fields, silos, small towns with one church and a wide street.
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Midday
The Tradouw Pass
Fourteen kilometres following the Tradouw River up through a gorge, on a road Thomas Bain cut with convict labour and opened in October 1873. The name is Khoi: tarras and doas, the women’s path, because the women of the Attaqua used it long before anybody thought to build a road on it. Bain’s stonework is still holding the corners up. At the top the Karoo opens out in front of them.
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Lunch
Sanbona
Fifty-four thousand hectares of private wilderness — about the size of greater Cape Town — and malaria-free. The family lodge stands above the Bellair Dam and runs its own programme for children. Lunch, then the pool through the heat of the afternoon, which is what everybody wants after a morning in a vehicle.
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Late afternoon
The first game drive
Out in open vehicles as the heat goes, with two vehicles kept private to the party so nobody shares a drive with strangers. Lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino, cheetah in country open enough to watch them run — and the only free-roaming pride of white lions in the world. The children sit in the front with the tracker.
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Evening
Dinner, and then the dark
There is no town, no road and no farm light within sight of this reserve. After dinner the sky comes right down to the horizon on every side.
