This is my own coast, at the one time of year when three things happen together.

In September the southern right whales↗ come into Walker Bay to calve, close enough under the cliffs to hear them breathe. On the West Coast, for a few weeks only, the land between the lagoon and the sea comes into flower. And on that same coast, in 1995, footprints were found in the rock that a woman left in wet sand about 117,000 years ago.

I was born on the West Coast, grew up in Constantia, and live now in Hermanus, where I wrote September Tides↗. The journey begins with the whales in Walker Bay, goes up the West Coast to the lagoon where the footprints were found, and ends in Cape Town, with the mountain and the Peninsula.

Our sample departure runs from Saturday 18 to Sunday 26 September 2027, with the group flying out on the Friday evening. In the second half of September the flowers are still out and the whales are well in.

Journeys to add

For guests who would like to stay on, three journeys can follow the last day. Each is optional, and the main journey runs exactly as written whether anyone takes one or not.

Sanbona, two nights in the Little Karoo

Three hours from Cape Town over the Tradouw Pass: fifty-four thousand hectares of private reserve, with lion, elephant and rhino, and no town, road or farm light within sight. Game drives at dawn and dusk, and a sky full of stars at night. Malaria-free. Sunday 26 to Tuesday 28 September, then back to Cape Town for the evening flights.

From $2,200 at the top level (Dwyka Tented Lodge), $1,750 at the middle level (Tilney Manor) and $1,550 at the entry level (Gondwana Family Lodge), per person sharing, fully inclusive.

Nambiti Hills, three nights of Big Five in KwaZulu-Natal

On Sunday 26 September we fly from Cape Town to Durban, which is included, and drive inland about three hours to the hills of Nambiti, near Ladysmith. It is a private reserve with lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo, and cheetah too, and it is free of malaria. The lodge's suites hang off the hillside above the valley, and the kitchen will cook from a Russian menu for the group.

Two game drives a day, at first light and at dusk, with the middle of the day for the pool, the spa or nothing at all. For anyone with an interest in history, a morning at Spioenkop with a historian, forty minutes away, where Churchill and Gandhi were both on the field in 1900. On Wednesday 29 September we drive back to Durban for the evening flights home.

From $2,200 per person sharing, at any level, fully inclusive, including the flight from Cape Town to Durban. A single room adds about $700.

Lesotho, four nights in the mountains

On Sunday 26 September we fly from Cape Town to Bloemfontein, which is included, and drive into Lesotho to Maliba Lodge in the Tsehlanyane valley for two nights. Then two nights at Semonkong, beside the Maletsunyane Falls. On Thursday 30 September we drive down to Maseru and fly to Johannesburg for the evening flights home.

I worked in Lesotho for the better part of four years, and these are days I know well; the April chapter shows them in full. The lodges are the same at every level. Maliba is the finest in Lesotho, and Semonkong is simple rather than grand. Late September nights in the mountains are cold, and the fires are lit every evening.

From $2,650 per person sharing, at any level, including the flights to Bloemfontein and from Maseru to Johannesburg. A helicopter over the falls can be added for about $1,060 per person.

Why September

The southern right whales↗ come into Walker Bay from about June and leave by December, but September and October are when the most are in and the calves are new. The West Coast flowers are shorter and less predictable: they depend on the winter's rain, and the Postberg opens only in August and September. The middle of September is when the two most often overlap.

It is spring, too. The days are mild, and the mountain is green after the winter. What the whales and the flowers do in any given week is up to them.

The thinking

The flights from Moscow and St Petersburg connect through Istanbul, Dubai, Doha or Addis Ababa and land in Cape Town between late morning and late afternoon. I meet every arrival myself.

There are two ways from the airport to Hermanus. The quicker road goes over the mountain. The coast road, along Clarence Drive above False Bay, takes about half an hour longer and is much the more beautiful. Halfway along it we would stop at Stony Point in Betty’s Bay, where the penguins come and go on the rocks a few steps from the path, and guests see the first wild animals of the trip within an hour or two of landing.

When the group lands, your tour leader decides which road we take. If everyone is tired, we go over the mountain and save the penguins for another day. If they are ready for it, we take the coast.

I live in Hermanus. By the end of the afternoon the group is in its rooms above Walker Bay, and if the whales↗ are in, they are often in sight before dinner.

The thinking

In September the southern right whales↗ come into Walker Bay↗ to calve, and on most days you can see them from the cliff path, a few hundred metres from the hotel. That is the one thing I can almost promise. The boat is another matter. Wind decides whether a small boat can go out, and in September the wind changes its mind daily.

So we keep two days for the whales and use them in whichever order the weather allows. If the sea is calm, the group goes out on a marine safari↗: a small boat for the group alone, the engines cut when the whales are near, and a hydrophone over the side so they hear the southern right whales as well as see them. If it is too rough, we walk the cliff path instead and keep the boat for the next calm morning.

Lunch is ten minutes inland, in the Hemel en Aarde valley, whose name means heaven and earth. The vines run up to the mountains there. We would arrange a tasting in a family cellar↗ and a long table outside.

The thinking

Whatever the weather did yesterday, today we do the other: the boat if we walked, the cliff path if we sailed. If Walker Bay stays rough for both days, we go where the whales are, along the coast to Gansbaai, or further to De Hoop, about an hour and a half away. On this trip we chase the whales rather than wait for them.

In the afternoon, along the coast at De Kelders, Klipgat cave opens onto the sea. People lived in it tens of thousands of years ago, and a guide takes the group down to it and tells what was found there.

Then Sopiesklip↗, a stretch of rock and sand that has been my family’s place for sixty years: my father’s, mine and now my son’s. No road reaches it. We would lay out a picnic among the rocks and the pools.

The thinking

After three nights on Walker Bay the group moves north to Langebaan, about three hours by road, round Cape Town and up the West Coast. It is a travel day, and I keep it light: an unhurried breakfast, a last look for the whales from the cliffs, and lunch on the way.

I was born at Langebaan, on this lagoon, which is clear and shallow and as blue as the Mediterranean. We arrive in the middle of the afternoon, in time to walk along the water and watch the sun go down over the lagoon.

The thinking

Langebaan lagoon lies inside the West Coast National Park. After breakfast a small boat, for the group alone, takes us across it to Kraalbaai. The cars go round by road and meet us on the other side.

We walk the shore where, in 1995, footprints were found in the rock that a woman left in wet sand about 117,000 years ago, among the oldest known of our own kind. There is a photograph of me as a small boy on the rock beside the place, taken long before anyone knew what was there.

Then the Postberg, which opens only in August and September, when the flowers↗ come, and in a good year the hills turn white, orange and purple down to the sea. What the season does depends on the winter’s rain, and we go where the rangers say is best. Lunch is at Churchhaven, a hamlet of whitewashed cottages inside the park.

The thinking

Paternoster is a fishing village of white cottages, a little way up the coast. Wolfgat sits on the rocks above the beach: a restaurant of about twenty seats that was named the best in the world in 2019, where Kobus van der Merwe cooks almost entirely from what grows and washes up along this shore.

His team takes the group foraging on the beach first, and then the restaurant is ours for a long lunch that runs into the afternoon.

From Paternoster it is about two hours down the coast to Cape Town, arriving in time to settle in before a light supper.

The thinking

We go up Table Mountain↗ in the morning, with priority boarding, while the air is still clear. The cableway runs only when the wind and the cloud allow; if it is closed, we move it to the first clear morning.

Then the South African Museum in the Company’s Garden, where the footprints from Kraalbaai are kept: the prints themselves, two days after the group stood on the shore where she made them. For a group that would like the museum to itself, it can open after dark, with a curator beside the footprints. That can be added at any level.

The afternoon belongs to the guests, and the group can split three ways, all at the Waterfront. Art, with someone who knows the artists themselves rather than the catalogue. Cape brandy and cigars, a tasting of the potstill brandies that have quietly been beating the French at international competitions. Or diamonds and tanzanite, a private viewing at one of the cutting houses, in the workshop rather than at a counter. Anyone who would rather rest at the hotel can.

The thinking

The Peninsula is the Cape most people come for, and the day is shaped around it. At the middle and entry levels we drive over Chapman’s Peak↗ to the reserve at the tip, walk the lighthouse path above the sea at Cape Point↗, and have a long lunch by the water before the penguins↗ at Boulders, who walk among the rocks and the swimmers as if they owned the beach.

At the top level the Peninsula is seen from the air instead: out by helicopter↗ round the Point and back along the Atlantic, then lunch by the sea and the penguins in the afternoon. At the middle and entry levels the helicopter can be added.

Everyone is back at the hotel by the middle of the afternoon. It is the last evening, and dinner is together.

The thinking

The flights home leave Cape Town in the evening, so the day has no early start. The morning is free: a last walk along the sea at Clifton or the Waterfront, a last look at the mountain, or simply the pool.

We leave for the airport in the middle of the afternoon, and I see the group through to check-in.

For guests who would like to stay on, three journeys can be added from here: two nights at Sanbona in the Little Karoo, three at Nambiti Hills in KwaZulu-Natal, or four in the mountains of Lesotho.