Joostenberg Vlakte, Canary Street, Durbanville, and the Art of Getting Things Wrong Productively There is a specific category of travel mistake that is not quite a disaster and not quite an adventure but occupies a useful space somewhere between the two. It produces no lasting harm, generates a mildly entertaining story, and occasionally — if the road you take instead turns out to have a Rock Kestrel on it — delivers something you wouldn't have found otherwise. Wednesday was that kind of day. The Wrong Day, The Right Attitude The plan had been straightforward. Drive out to meet Cindy at her home in Joostenberg Vlakte, a farming settlement in the Tygerberg district northeast of Cape Town where the land opens up, the sky gets considerably bigger, and the Cape's suburban density gives way to something altogether more agricultural and unhurried. The Klipheuwel road — one of those back routes that rewards the driver who isn't in a hurry with a completely different version of the Cape than the one the tourist brochures feature. We drove it with the particular pleasure of people behind the wheel of a car they are beginning to trust, in a country they are beginning, once again, to inhabit properly rather than visit. Joostenberg Vlakte arrived. We found Canary Street. We found Cindy's home, which was immediately and obviously the kind of place that a genuine wildlife and nature enthusiast lives in — the garden, even glimpsed briefly from the gate, had the specific quality of a space that has been thought about and tended with purpose rather than merely maintained. At which point Cindy appeared, warm and welcoming, and it became apparent — in the gentle, slightly excruciating way these things always become apparent — that we were a day early. The meeting was Thursday. The silence that followed lasted perhaps three seconds but contained, in that compressed space, the full emotional journey from mild confusion through dawning realisation to the specific variety of embarrassment reserved for people who consider themselves organised. We consider ourselves organised. We had arrived on the wrong day with complete efficiency and excellent punctuality, which is arguably worse than being late.

Standing on the shores of Bloubergstrand, looking across Table Bay toward the unmistakable silhouette of Table Mountain, you can feel Cape Town breathing. The light, the wind, the salt in the air — it all folds together into a kind of quiet magic. This watercolour captures that atmosphere perfectly: the softness, the scale, the sense that this city is always more than one thing at once. For many, Cape Town is simply home. For others, it’s a playground of wind and waves. A birder’s paradise. A botanist’s living laboratory. A hiker’s utopia. A tourists curiosity. A rock climber’s cathedral of sandstone and sky. It’s a place that invites you in, hands you a new passion, and dares you not to fall in love.

(Monday departure, Tuesday arrival, Wednesday morning, and a car with 7,000 miles ahead of it) Monday: The Machinery of Departure There is a specific variety of calm that descends on experienced travellers at airports. It is not relaxation. It is the disciplined suppression of everything that could still go wrong, maintained through forward momentum and the studious avoidance of checking the time too frequently. We arrived at Gatwick early on Monday, which is the only sane way to arrive at Gatwick. Online check-in had been completed in the civilised surroundings of home, which meant that our business at the Norse Air desk was the focused, practical matter of surrendering luggage rather than the extended paper-shuffling exercise it might otherwise have been. The luggage, it should be said, required a moment. There were the standard bags. And then there was the oversized case — the one that needed its own conversation with the check-in agent, its own special tag, its own separate journey into the belly of the airport. Inside it, carefully packed and padded against the rigours of hold travel, was a collection of cameras and lenses — not ours, not this time. These were destined for a photography group of African children, kids who would learn to see the world through a viewfinder the way we had learned ourselves, decades ago in different circumstances on the same continent. Also in that case: art materials for Gareth's mother, chosen with the specific knowledge of what she would actually use and enjoy. Two gifts, one unwieldy case, one slightly anxious moment on the scales. It was fine. It always is, until it isn't, and this time it was. Security was security — the universal choreography of laptops out, liquids surrendered to small bags, belts removed, dignity temporarily optional. Customs, the gate, the wait. The particular airport suspension of normal time. And then boarding — and the settling into seats with the specific exhale of people who have made it this far and can now, finally, do nothing useful except eat questionable food and watch films they'd never choose at home.

A Journey in Many Parts Before We Even Left There is a particular kind of madness that descends on a household approximately three weeks before a long-haul trip to Southern Africa. It arrives quietly, disguised as organisation. First a note on the back of an envelope. Then a sensible list. Then several competing lists. Then a full-scale domestic archaeology project in which every cupboard, camera bag, coat pocket and kitchen drawer in the house is upended and examined with the forensic intensity of people who are absolutely, definitely, completely in control of the situation. We were not in control of the situation. But we were going to South Africa. And that, as it turned out, was more than enough. Two Photographers, One Destination, Fifty Years of Reasons It is worth, before the bags are even opened, introducing the two people making this journey — because understanding who we are explains rather a lot about how we travel. Gareth was born in Durban. He grew up in Amanzimtoti, moved to Port Elizabeth where he spent his boyhood outdoors — a Boy Scout in the proper, muddy, self-sufficient tradition — and then to Cape Town for schooling, by which point a camera had already found its way permanently into his hands. Photography began in 1974 and has not meaningfully stopped since. In 1977 and 1978 he served in the army, which sounds like an interruption to the story but was actually where, through a friend named Roger Ellis, an already keen interest in birds became something closer to a lifelong calling. After the army came a stint as a volunteer game ranger, spending spare weekends at the Karoo National Park — unpaid, entirely by choice, which tells you something important about the man. A career eventually intervened, carrying him to Johannesburg, but the outdoors was never entirely relinquished: birding, camping and travel filled every long weekend and holiday, accumulating into a knowledge of Southern Africa that is genuinely encyclopaedic. In 1995, life pivoted, and Gareth moved to the United Kingdom — Milton Keynes first, Eastbourne eventually — where British birding became a new and absorbing chapter without ever replacing the original.

The Great Trek is now over, we have travelled from Capetown to the Mozambiqu and Eswatini borders and skirted Lesotho and now returned to Capetown. We have seen all the large animals except for whales and added at least 6 bird species to add to ebird. Walked with elephants, played with monkeys, flirted with parrots! We saw great scenery, camped under the stars, endured a storm deluge, drove in a small car on roads suitable only for 4x4s, dived in the Indian ocean and met great people. When I return to the UK I will reveal all.