When road tripping the South African Midlands, you aren’t doing it right unless you “Meander.” It’s an official plan, you see, you go to the Midlands specifically to Meander. It’s a place filled with cheese farms, craft breweries, historic old pubs, gin distilleries (the South Africans love their gin!), beeswax candle making, antiques, hand made chocolate shops, purveyors of essential oils, florists, and the like. Your job, if you choose to accept it, is to wander (errhemm, excuse me --- Meander) from place to place, fattening yourself up and supporting the local economy with purchases of scented handmade knicknackery and maybe a telescoping monocle for the Captain. They had those, too.

Game to be lead astray by local tradition, we. eat handmade chocolates, wander through shops surrounded by flower gardens, find cute pubs, beer breweries, gin distilleries, we eat more food, we meet a goat who provides us with freshly made cheese, we even offer a ride to a local woman who had to be in her late sixties or more when we spied her climbing her way up a steep dirt road on the way to the cheese goat.

She gratefully hopped in the back seat, guided us toward the peak of the hill only to point to her house on the top of a peak next door to the one we had driven on. “No road to there.” She says, hopping out of the car and then more speedily than could have been predicted, traversed the ravine and climbed the next mountainside.

We eventually arrived back at our haunted home-base to nap off the not insignificant portion of chocolate, cheese, pub food, and gin.

“We need a hike now!” I said to Andrew, feeling quite overstuffed.

He agreed, so we headed out for more meandering through beautiful pastures and rolling hillsides where local South Africans rent “cottages” to get out of the city and enjoy nature for a while. We hike through forest with gates of hydrangea beckoning us to enter. Tiny, innocent looking grasses glow in the sunlight, but slice our skin as they brush past us leaving hairline claw marks like a catclaw would do. Every now and then, the trail would open up to view a beautiful home nested somewhere quiet and lovely. It’s idyllic territory, and I could certainly post up and stay a week somewhere like this.

We also meet another '“master of disguise”.

From here, we decided to venture even deeper into the center of the country, to see what is famed to be one of the most beautiful mountain regions around: Drackensberg. After a breakfast of delicious sourdough toast topped with smashed avocado, poached egg, and a sweet tomato jam (this is a new food I absolutely adore here), we speed off down the road to find our next destination.

Having two hours to our destination, the car ride takes on the tone of ye olde Oddgodfrey road trips of olde in which Leslie muses aloud on the debates of the day while Andrew stares into the distance, blinks, and contemplates. After summarizing the list of things I think are satifactorily on track in our lives, praising the greatness of our team’s planning and execution of the latest grand life steps - HEY! We arrived alive across the Indian Ocean! - I felt compelled to open discussions on a question both Oddgodfreys had been avoiding to date:

“So, are we going to sail north to the UK with the Steelies or what?”

As I said this, I spotted another giant pothole speeding toward my tires at 80kilometers per hour. I glide left, intending to straddle the thing with left tire and right, but Andrew - previously lodged in a reverie of silence starts up and yells; “RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT!” My hands twitch over the steering wheel in that momentary pause between instincts and….

CLONK!!! “SPOOOWOOSH! SPEEWWWWW!”

This elicits an impromptu recitation of sailor’s poetry from the mouth of my dear Captain. I pull over to the side of the road and bite my lip as both of us step aside the car to survey the damage.

It’s bad. The sidewall of the tire has been sliced all the way through.

A bit red in the face, Captain’s Zen Buddha equilibrium is disturbed, mostly I think, by the prospect of having to add the price of a tire onto the cost of our rental car expenditures. He makes a pile of our life’s possessions behind the trunk of the car and yanks the “donut-spare” from its space muttering obscenities.

I feel a little bad about it, but it was bound to happen I think.

I wander off to take pictures of pretty flowers by the side of the road and memorialize this moment in time as one of those experiences that captures the true essence of what we are doing here.

The donut supported our wanderings until we could locate a tire shop to acquire a satisfactory replacement. Will the rental insurance cover a tire? “No, sorry.” We have windshield insurance, liability insurance, and the like, but there are just too many potholes in this area to obtain insurance coverage. We were on our own.

Attempt #2....off we go to Drackensberg.

Once again, we take the scenic route, and it is truly scenic. Farmland, tree stands and meadows stretch as far as they eye can see. Every now and then we slow to pass through tiny towns filled with buzz as South African’s go about their days.

We stop in what feels like THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE where Andrew commences his first wine tasting (I’m the designated driver.) This isn’t exactly wine country, yet, but Cathedral Peak Winery has taken some of South Africa’s famous West Coast vines and planted them here in the hopes of starting a new wine growing region at the foot of the Drackensberg mountain range.

Their claim to fame? (Besides the wine, of course.) Deadly Nightshade Jam which is not deadly when harvested at a certain time of year. “My mom ate some of this jar last night, so I am positive it’s safe.” The young man who pours the wine promises. That is a certification I can rely on. It tasted like a slightly drier blueberry jam.

This drive has to be one of the most beautiful we’ve ever done. Zulu villages were nestled in valleys glowing neon green with Spring. Zulu huts, both colorful and unique to my eyes, were nestled across the foreground while Cathedral Peak rose toward the sky in the distance. Photos do it NO justice. Kids played in rivers all along the roadside, half dressed and splashing with wide smiles. They stop to wave at us, and some chase the car for fun. “Hello! Hello! Hello!” They call out after us, “Do you have any sweets!?” We didn’t, so we were no fun at all. We didn’t plan ahead, I guess.

Our hotel here is also old and historic, with pictures of the “Good Old Boys” hanging along the hallways. The scenery is gorgeous and surprising. I don’t know what I expected from South Africa’s landscape, but this is not it. We sit on our patio and look at the mountains while a misty rain washes over the valley like a curtain. Our hike that evening is rained out and Andrew is disappointed, but we took the chance to read under the porch awning until the rain stopped visit with brightly colored birds hanging upside down in trees, meet the resident deer, and enjoy a view that can only be described as epic.

The next morning, we while Cathedral Peak plays in tumbling clouds and mist. We enjoy the smell of the grasses warming in the sun and pluck blackberries from thorny bushes to snack on as we walk. We make the trek to a river where local people like to swim sometimes. We didn’t meet any on the trail, though. We had the whole place to ourselves.

There is so much we could do in this area. In fact, our friends Matt and Amy were simultaneously climbing to one of the world’s largest waterfalls just a couple more hours drive away. But, just after our hike as we were contemplating the question “what should we do next,” Andrew looked down at his Windy.com app and said, “Oh look at that! We have a weather window starting in two days!”

And so, we turned our rental jalopy in the direction of home and started a six hour drive through treacherous pothole terrain to find our way back to Sonrisa and back out to sea.

“So, are we going to sail North with the Steelies?” I ask.

“We’ll talk about it later.” Andrew swears. “Wait until we are done meandering!”