There are some holidays that give you photographs, some that give you stories and then there are those that somehow manage to give you both, alongside memories that you know will still make you smile many years from now. South Africa has certainly been one of those.
Our adventure began far away from the bustle of Cape Town, under the vast African sky and quite literally, under the shade of the Nyala tree, in the extraordinary wilderness of the Greater Kruger.
At Nkuwa Wilderness Camp, there are no streetlights, no traffic and very little between you and the creatures whose home you have temporarily entered. In the stillness of the African night, the roar of a lion carries across the bush with a depth that no television documentary can ever quite capture, while somewhere in the darkness comes the unmistakable, almost otherworldly laugh of a hyena.
And there you are, lying in your tent, contemplating the fact that your principal line of defence is… a whistle.
Of course, the rangers Allie and Keagan, reassure you that the animals won’t come into your tent and because they say it with such calm confidence, you nod sagely and pretend this is entirely reassuring. Meanwhile, something rustles outside and suddenly that whistle feels like the most important piece of emergency equipment you have ever owned.
Then there are the joys of the open-air shower, one of those experiences that sounds wonderfully romantic until you are actually standing beneath it, shampoo in your hair, keeping one eye firmly on the surrounding trees just in case one of the resident monkeys decides what your holiday really needs is a personal shampoo and conditioning service.
But that is the magic of the bush. You are not looking at nature through glass or watching it from the comfort of your sitting room. You are in it. You hear it breathing, moving and calling around you and you quickly realise that you are the visitor here.
From Nkuwa we travelled to Tomo Safari Lodge, with its vast expanse of African bushland and the privilege of searching for the legendary Big Five: the regal lion surveying his kingdom, the elusive leopard melting almost impossibly into the landscape, the magnificent elephant whose sheer size is somehow matched by its grace, the formidable buffalo and perhaps most poignantly of all, the rhinoceros.
To see a rhino in the wild is to understand both the wonder of nature and the appalling capacity of human beings to destroy it. These extraordinary animals continue to be hunted for their horns because there are still people prepared to kill them and others willing to buy, sell and traffic the horn on the black market, fuelled in part by entirely unfounded claims about supposed medicinal properties.
Standing there watching one of these magnificent creatures quietly going about its life, it is difficult to comprehend the greed that could reduce it to the monetary value of a piece of horn.
Nature at its best. Humanity at its worst.
And then, from the dust, silence and vastness of the bush, we exchanged safari for city and headed south to Cape Town.
Cape Town is one of those cities where nature refuses to remain politely in the background. Mountain, ocean and city seem to jostle for your attention and wherever you look there is another view demanding that you stop for a moment.
But for us, Cape Town held something much more precious than scenery.
Perhaps the greatest joy of this trip was reconnecting with The Edwards, our wonderful Capetonian friends after seventeen years.
Seventeen!
It seems impossible that so much time has slipped quietly past since we were last together, until, of course, you look at the photographs from those days and then look at one another. We’re all a little older, a little greyer and perhaps a little more wrinkled. Some of us are considerably more follicly challenged than others! Our children, who were once simply “the children”, are now fully fledged adults with careers, homes and responsibilities of their own and somehow, all of us have become grandparents.
Yet within minutes of being together, none of that mattered.
The thousands of miles between us disappeared, seventeen years collapsed into what felt like seventeen minutes and the rip-roaring, belly-aching laughter returned as though someone had simply pressed play after a very long pause.
And then came the road trip.
Thank you for giving us the most precious thing any of us can give another person: your time. You gave it so generously and what followed was an absolute hoot from beginning to end.
First stop, Hermanus, where apparently we discovered that we had our very own Whale Whisperer amongst us. Who knew? There is something magical about scanning an apparently empty ocean and then suddenly seeing that unmistakable movement in the water, knowing that somewhere beneath the surface is one of the largest and most extraordinary creatures on Earth.
From whale watching in Hermanus it was onwards to Onrus, for fish and chips by the sea, because even on the other side of the world some traditions require no explanation.
Then came somewhere I had wanted to visit for years: Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of the African continent.
Ever since learning about the great voyages around southern Africa, of explorers battling their way around these treacherous seas and of the Cape of Good Hope, I had wanted to stand at the bottom of Africa and look out towards that vast expanse of water. Cape Agulhas marks the geographical southern tip of the continent and the conventional dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
There was something strangely moving about finally standing there. So many maps studied over a lifetime, so many stories of voyages, exploration and adventure and suddenly you are no longer pointing at a place on a page.
You are standing on it.
Our journey back towards Cape Town brought another side of South Africa into view, through beautiful landscapes, mountain passes and scenery that seemed to change around every bend. We stopped at Elgin, surrounded by the beautiful countryside of the Western Cape and travelled onwards through some truly stunning places where the journey itself became as memorable as the destination. As did the ice cream!
Back in Cape Town, there was still plenty to explore.
There was, of course, Table Mountain, that great unmistakable presence watching over the city, sometimes standing completely clear against the blue sky and at other times disappearing beneath its famous tablecloth of cloud. You can see photographs of it a thousand times but nothing quite prepares you for how completely it dominates Cape Town.
And then there was the shopping.
Obviously.
Because one can spend days contemplating the majesty of the African wilderness, worrying about endangered rhinos, standing between two oceans and marvelling at mountains and whales, but eventually there are shops to be investigated. It is all about balance.
Then on to Boulders Beach and its famous colony of African penguins, surely among the most entertaining residents of the Cape. They waddle along the sand with the confidence of creatures who know perfectly well that thousands of people have travelled halfway around the world specifically to photograph them.
More sightseeing followed.
And, naturally, more shopping.
Then came the magnificent Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, nestled against the eastern slopes of Table Mountain, a place where it feels as though someone has gathered together the extraordinary richness of South Africa’s plant life and created a living celebration of it. Walking through the gardens and then above them on the Centenary Tree Canopy Walkway, with its sweeping views across the treetops towards the mountains, gave us yet another perspective on this remarkable corner of the world.
And finally, Eden on the Bay, with the ocean stretching before us and Table Mountain forming one of those almost ridiculously perfect Cape Town backdrops. A place to sit, look back and realise just how much we had managed to pack into one journey.
South Africa gave us lions roaring in the darkness and hyenas laughing beyond our tents. It gave us elephants moving silently through the bush, endangered rhinos, whales breaking the surface of the ocean and penguins waddling along the beach. It gave us mountains, oceans, gardens, endless roads, spectacular scenery and yes, rather a lot of shopping.
But perhaps its greatest gift was the reminder that the things we treasure most are rarely things at all.
They are experiences. They are memories. And, above all, they are people.
Because some friendships simply refuse to disappear.
The best friendships can withstand time, distance, changing lives and long silences because somewhere beneath all of those things remains the affection, laughter, shared history and above all trust, that brought you together in the first place.
Holidays are always wonderful and coming home is invariably tinged with sadness, but this time leaving felt just that little bit harder because we weren’t simply leaving behind the sunshine, the wildlife, the mountains or the ocean.
We were leaving behind people we love.
Seventeen years was far too long, guys. Let’s not be quite so ridiculous next time.
And perhaps that is what I will remember most when I think back to this journey: sitting beneath the shade of the Nyala tree, surrounded by a world that has been turning for millions of years, reminded that life moves extraordinarily quickly and that the people who make us laugh until our stomachs hurt are the ones we should never allow time or distance to take away.
Because the miles may separate us and the years may change us, but true friendship has a remarkable way of finding its way home.
“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”
Khalil Gibran
Soulful Spaces 