Waking up at 4:15 to catch a bus. The bus leaves just after 5. You need to be there 30 minutes before. A little extra time to get ready. My phone blinks at me as I open my eyes. An sms. “We regret to inform you…”. The bus is late. I lie there. Not enough time to go back to sleep. Too early to be awake. A cup of coffee. An energy drink.

The bus eventually leaves at 6:10am. Finally on the move, on the go. I sit in my little window seat. Early morning light splashes golden across the green, late-summer veld. The forests between Stutt and King William’s Town. The rolling hills between King and Peddie. The game farms between Peddie and Grahamstown.

Grahamstown morning. I wander up to Dulce’s and order a coffee. I have a few hours to kill in Grahamstown – a few hours of work to put in. I sit at my table and drink coffee and order breakfast and work, while the sun from the window makes its slow migration across the table-top.

Strange people in come in for breakfast. The curt, abrupt businessman harrying the waitress, rushing through his food, hurrying to get on with his day. The older, less wealthy man who argues with the waitress because they’re increased the prices and he has just enough for breakfast with a sausage and a coffee. The regular who knows the staff and order the same thing every time. The fussy woman who wants to swap out half the ingredients in the meal and then spends breakfast on her phone, loudly planning a busy social life.

I answer calls, too, wishing fervently that today wasn’t the day people decided to contact me after weeks of not calling. I tire of working. Time to take a break.

The noise of singing and bustle lures me out into the road. I have shopping to do anyway. Outside, a little further down the road, a group of 50 or so people sing and dance outside the High Court. A political protest. I am struck, amused, by the passing comment of a waiter as I am leaving the coffee shop. He sighs, clicks his tongue and says dismissively, “ANC again”.

Shopping done and I move to another coffee shop. More calls, more work. This is one of my favourite places in Grahamstown. I used to stop her often when I was a student.

A little later in the day, we set off: road-tripping. From here we will drive clear across the country to Stellenbosch. Two people in a small car filled with luggage and things and CD after CD of random music. We stop occasionally. Nanaga to pick up a late lunch, Kareedo to buy airtime.

We watch the landscape. We both like to travel, both notice the land. We drive past game farms, past sheep and mountains of solid rock, through fruit and farming valleys. We stop and buy a bag of mostly not-rotten – although Richard discovers later that they taste funny – apples from a man with at least one arm and several teeth missing, who cannot speak English but is extremely determined.

Beyond Joubertina, Misgund and Kareel, the cloud is low and it is starting to get a little dusk-dim and misty. In the dim light, the windows of cottages glow orange. The look safe and solid and warm in the growing darkness. Richard explains that our eyes switch from seeing colour to seeing contrast at night. I didn’t know that. We talk about blue mountains as silhouettes. Earlier. Earlier, also, light through clouds on majestic mountains like driving through an inspirational poster.

The conversation moves back and forth. The kind of conversation that soars and plunges and drifts and meanders. We reach no conclusions but share and tease and turn over ideas. Back and forth.

At some point we hit something that jumps up from the road in front of the car. I think it’s a frog. Richard thinks it is brown and furry. Later we realise that we have, someone, at some point, lost a front number-plate.

It is dark by the time we arrive in Oudsthoorn. Dark and beautiful. The streets are almost deserted. The buildings stand in their old-age glory. With the help of cell-phone internet, we local and head for Church Street and the backpackers. We check in and then head out for something to eat. The car guard is surreally friendly and polite and offers the following days weather predictions. Dinner is great – Karoo Ostrich. We return to the backpackers to work and, finally, to sleep.