Category: Travel

  • Durban. September. Rain.

    It’s raining in Durban. It’s September, of course it’s raining in Durban. This is my lasting memory of the town. Durban, which for everyone else is summer holidays and December sunshine, is September rain to me. Not that I mind. September rain in Durban is inextricably tangled in my mind with the reason for all…

  • The dreaded scale

    The bus left Somerset West at 8:10 on Friday evening. I settled into my window seat and disappeared into an mp3 playlist, dozing every now and then. All went well until, somewhere near Swellendam, sometime around midnight, the bus pulled off the road. We had no idea what was going on. The lights were turned…

  • Cape Town fake day

    On Tuesday I got up early and headed to the station. I had planned to take the Premium Express train – a “business-class” train that runs between Strand and Cape Town each week-day, complete with complimentary coffee, tea, newspapers and SAPS-on-board. Sadly, it appears to be impossible to buy a single-journey/one-day ticket for this train.…